The Legacy of Aura: Destined Path
by smithy936
Summary: AU. Some heroes are born great, but others? Others must endure the great trials that await them to become one. Through determination and a lot of luck, Ash will embark upon a quest in a land full of darkness and hatred that will bring him much pain, struggles, and misery. But through it all, he will gain so much more. Starts a bit slow, but gets better later on.
1. Ch 1: Prologue

Story time- Text

"Story time"- Someone talking

_Story time_- Thoughts

* * *

Prologue

Darkness, mayhem, and destruction surrounded them on all sides as two figures stood apart mere feet from each other, both emitting power on such an impossible scale that anyone who might have stumbled upon their battle would've mistaken them for gods.

Despite the fact that both of them were audibly panting heavily in exhaustion, the two powerful figures remained rooted to the spot, their gaze's never straying as they both glared at each other in defiance.

The first figure was a man wearing a pitch black cloak that looked like it would have covered his entire body had it not been in a near shredded condition, his skin was a pale whitish-grey color, his body, with muscles that spoke of years of intense training and combat, was currently marred with various cuts and bruises that bled freely, blood flowed down his face from an open wound on his forehead, and his once silver hair was stained by splotches of blood from head wounds giving it a dull red shade, and he had to repeatedly blink to keep blood from entering his eyes.

The second figure was another man, though quite a bit younger, that wore what once looked like a simple white T-shirt; but now looked like more of a toga with the condition it was currently in and, just like the other man, his tan skinned body was marred with various cuts and bruises that bled out freely as he panted, his blue denim pants were also littered with cuts that revealed more bruises on his legs, and his face was as bad as the rest of his body as blood poured from wounds on his scalp and on his forehead all the way to his chin, dark circles of exhaustion were under his eyes as he blinked to keep the blood from entering.

"H-how? How are you this strong?! How can you keep up with ME!" yelled the black clad figure as his pupils narrowed into slits as he glared at the _child _in front of him with such rage in his eyes. "You are NOTHING COMPARED TO ME! YOU ALWAYS WERE! SO WHY IS IT NOW THAT…you can fight me on even grounds?" He said as his angry tirade gave way to more tired panting.

The other man seemed to chuckle slightly in response before it was replaced by harsh coughs as his internal wounds started acting up; but after a few seconds he recovered and gave a slight grin at his opponent as he took a deep, painful, shuddering breath before he gave his response.

"Because…unlike you, I have something to live for, something…to **FIGHT** for!" He said in between painful gasps as he glared at his opponent with such intensity that, if looks could kill, he would have died a thousand times over. "I fight for my friends. They are what drive me to fight! And as long as I continue to draw breath, I will fight you with everything I have!" He said as the first figures eyes flashed with anger and disgust.

"Friends? HA! Such a stupid sentiment that you hold so dear to yourself! Friendship is nothing but a waste!" said the figure as he scowled at his opponent in disgust.

"I wouldn't expect you of all people to understand. You have long since forgotten what it means to have someone close to you, to know the feeling that someone will always be behind you, ready to catch you if you fall." He said with a smile of contentment on his face, the precious memories he shared with his friends seemingly rejuvenating him as his power flared to life around him once more.

"I've had enough! The time for talking is over! If you think that I will so readily admit defeat then you are **MISTAKEN!** I will show why my name made even the strongest warriors tremble in fright before I gained these powers!" The black clad figure yelled in rage as his own power, reacting to his intense rage, flared to life around him.

"Yeah, our battles not over yet, I'll make sure that you die today, even if I have to sacrifice my own life in the process!" He said as he glared at his opponent with newfound determination in his bright purple eyes.

The tension in the air was so thick; one could cut straight through it with a kitchen knife as the two figures' bodies glowed with their own respective energies. The black clad man, true to his color scheme, had a cloak of dark black energy around him as it seemed to have a mind of its own as it twisted wildly; his younger opponent had a cloak of blue energy flowing about his body as it danced around him like an ethereal flame.

After what seemed like forever, the two figures started walking towards each other, never once breaking eye contact as the energy wrapped around their bodies seemed to flare in excitement as the two neared each other more and more every second as they sped up, until they were running full speed towards each other, nothing but a blur to the naked eye.

The younger man cocked his right fist back in preparation for a powerful punch, and his black clad opponent copied his movement with his left fist as black flames seemed to surround it as they drew near.

Closer and closer they came until they were mere inches from another, both ready to strike the other with the force of a thousand suns; and as the distance between them decreased, time seemed to slow down as both opponents glared in to each other's eyes.

The black clad man stared into his opponents bright purple eyes with gray sclera, and the younger man stared into his black clad opponents bright crimson eyes with black sclera and, in that moment, the two opponents developed a grudging respect towards one another.

Time restored itself to its rightful speed, and the two opponents collided with a large shockwave of power as the two powerful opponents were engulfed in a large, powerful explosion.

* * *

**This is an idea for a story I've had for quite some time now, and I've been thinking about this so much that I'm afraid I'll lose focus of other more important things on my mind, so….here it is! Please review and tell me what you think! Is it good? Bad? I won't know unless you say so.**

**Thank you for your time, and have a nice day.**


	2. Ch 2: The Vision of One

**Disclaimer: I in no way own Pokémon in any way, shape or form; but if I did that would be awesome.**

* * *

The Vision of One

The temple of prophecy, a sacred place that provided guidance to his people so that they could help mankind better themselves, a place where ones fate could be determined, the more accepting knowing that their fate could not be changed, and where one Artemis Kartho was currently located as he stared at the new addition to the many other drawings that made up this sacred location.

Artemis, along with a few of his other kin, would add to the Temple of prophecy by having a "Vision" in their dreams of any possibility: the fate of an ill child, the outcome of a great battle, or even an event that could drastically change the very world itself, and only a few hours earlier did Artemis receive one of these Visions.

He stared in front of him at the new additions to the temple: the first was a mural of many vivid colors that depicted a tall man with silver hair surrounded by a murky blackness that sent chills up his spine, his red, Soulless eyes stared at a town that was on fire, with its inhabitants' faces frozen in a state of pain and anguish as they burned to death. This one disturbed him greatly; an evil so great did not exist, at least not yet it seemed.

The second mural depicted a young boy with raven black hair surrounded by a bright blue flame that seemed to shine with life; but the weird part about this mural was that it was split in half via the middle.

While one side of the boy's surroundings depicted a field of flowers being shined upon brightly by the sun, the other half depicted a barren field of craggy rock formations that eerily resembled hands, which reached into a blood red sky and tried to grab a pitch black sun.

The boy himself was not kept from this phenomena, as one side of his face was plastered with a happy grin and brown eyes filled with joy, the other side was given a much darker version of his previous expression as he seemed to stare at the viewer with crimson red eyes full of fury and hatred, and a frightful grin of bloodlust that would send the strongest of men to their knees, the entirety of the mural also being surrounded by doors that created numerous paths in the shape of a labyrinth of many twists and turns, until finally ending right on the spot of the boy's body that contained his heart.

One final mural lay in between the two: a young female infant with her arms stretching in both directions toward the murals with a look of confusion in her eyes, as if she couldn't choose which one she wanted.

The meaning of these murals had yet to come to him as he stared at them again and again, the only thing that he could currently decipher of them was that these three individuals would play major parts in the world's future.

When this would happen he did not know, but, with the impending doom of his kin on the horizon, he would somehow find a way to live long enough to witness the playing events that would lead to his vision coming to fruition.

* * *

(_100 years later_)

A very large spike in negative energy brought artemis out of his meditative trance as he stared in the direction he had sensed the disturbance.

He had sensed brief spikes of negative energy over the years, mostly from conflict brought about from war; but this one was the largest he had ever had the discomfort of sensing.

As artemis continued to stare into the distance, the mural of the black cloaked man flared to life with an unholy dark purple light, and the flames from the torches surrounding it turned black, swallowing the little light that entered the cave it was in, and finally caught his attention.

Artemis stared at the obvious sign in front of him: the dark being he had seen in his vision had been born and thus the events which would decide the fate of the world would begin soon.

But while one of the individuals from his vision had been revealed, where were the other two?

* * *

(_At the same time in another location_)

Blood splattered the ground once more as the last man fell, his face eternally frozen in an expression of horror. The ground was lit ablaze with ominous black flames as one sole figure walked towards one of the many bodies that littered the ground, his crimson red eyes focused on nothing but the one body that he was approaching.

He stopped as his eyes gazed at the once beautiful face of his lover, now marred with scars and blemishes along with the rest of her body. He had been too late to save her from the men who had taken her from him, and she had suffered for it.

While he could not save her from her demise, he had gotten his revenge by taking the lives of those who had made her suffer. The anger, the **HATRED **he had felt when he saw those men laugh with glee as they tortured her had taken him over and changed him, **TRANSFORMED** him! The newfound power he had received in that moment of primal fury he then used to torture and slaughter those animals who dared to call themselves human.

Staring into the lifeless eyes of his dead lover, the hatred within him burst to life once more as he raised his head and roared to the heavens in anguish and fury, and the earth around him exploded in a Sea of black flames.

* * *

(_12 years after previous events_)

The sound of a new life being brought into the world could be heard throughout the village as focus was brought unto the hospital room of one Delia Ketchum as she yelled at the top of her lungs for the rooms 3 other occupants to hear.

"Push, Mrs. Ketchum! Push! Just a little more… I can see the head now!" the doctor said as he stared intently at the bulge emerging from Mrs. Ketchum's vagina. (AN: M rating for a reason folks)

"**GACK!** You're doing great honey! Just a little more and w-**GAH!** - we'll be the proud parents to 2 little munchkins!" Fuso Ketchum said as he stared at his screaming wife, squeezing his assuredly broken hand as he continued to lovingly support his wife in her time of need.

"**FUCK YOU FUSO! YOU DID THIS TO ME YOU SON OF A BITCH! WHEN THIS IS OVER I'M GOING CASTRATE YOU AND THEN I'M GOING TO KILL YOU!**" was Delia's response to Fuso's support.

"HeHe, mom is saying so many bad words! Keep going momma! I want a little brother!" Said a 9 year- old Aaron Ketchum as he giggled at his father's wincing and eagerly Awaited for the arrival of his newborn baby brother.

"Just one more push Mrs. Ketchum! On 3! 1...2…3!" On 3 the doctor pulled the head out with the gentleness of an experienced doctor as Delia and Fuso gave one last agonizing yell of pain, until all was silent once more… until 5 seconds later.

As the atmosphere in the room finally relaxed after hours of tension; the cry of an infant could be heard for all to hear as the new addition to the Ketchum family was born.

All eyes in the room focused on the small peach colored infant in the arms of the doctor as he wailed his little lungs out while being tenderly wrapped in a blanket and passed to his mother as she looked on with tears in her eyes.

"Congratulations Mr. and Mrs. Ketchum, you are the parents to a beautiful baby boy." Proudly stated the doctor as he smiled gently and began to step out of the room to give the family some needed privacy.

"My little Baby Boy." Delia whispered as she stared lovingly at the now silent infant in her arms. "Oh?! Fuso look! I think his eyes are starting to open!" She said as the infant's nose scrunched up and his eyes started to squint just as Fuso and Aaron walked in to view.

The infants eyes opened up to the brand new world, which he would now call home, and took his first look at his surroundings. The first thing he see's is the woman holding him, staring into his eyes with a look of pure love only a mother could have, and at that moment the infant knew this woman was his mother and began to reach towards her with his stubby arms.

"They're brown. just like yours Fuso." Said Delia as she looked into her baby's brown eyes and cooed at the infant as he tried to touch her face.

"He's beautiful, honey." Said Fuso as he smiled gently at his newborn son. "I can already tell he'll grow up to be a real heartbreaker." He said while thinking of how handsome his son will look when he grows up and starts attracting young ladies left and right, just like his old man!

Little Aaron could do nothing but stare in awe at the little creature in his mother's arms that was now his little brother. He looked so weak, so helpless! And it was his responsibility as a big brother that he grow up to be big and strong.

"_Don't worry little brother, big brother will protect you forever and ever!_" thought Aaron as he smiled gently at the infant in his mother's arms.

"What's his name gonna be mama?" Asked Aaron as the infant quickly became tired and fell asleep in his mother's gentle embrace. "He's gotta have a cool name! Like...um...Uh...Oh! Like Crokky!" Said Aaron with an excited look on his face.

"No Aaron, we're not gonna name him Crokky...are we?" Fuso asked Delia with a perplexed look on his face as looked to his wife and son. "Can't really imagine having a son named Crokky of all things."

"No, we're not naming him Crokky-aww!- I already have a name for him." Said Delia as she watched her husband and son look towards her expectantly. "His name will be...Ash."

At that very moment Ash's mouth opened up into a wide, toothless smile as he heard his mother's voice.

"I think he likes that name" Said Fuso as he put an arm around Aaron and Delia and gathered them into a group hug as they all smiled alongside baby Ash as they all thought of what the future would hold for them.

* * *

(_At the same time in the former temple of prophecy_)

The second mural lit up in a bright flash of blue as the torches surrounding it gained a blue tint to their flames as well. The second being in his vision had awakened and, though it would undoubtedly take some time, Artemis was sure that the still unknown third character would awaken as well.

Artemis could already tell that much would happen in the world in the next few years, both good and bad, and these three characters would be the cause.

He could only hope that His descendants would be able to prevent the world's untimely end.

* * *

**After so long I finally got some writing done! The second chapter of the legacy of aura is finally finished! I have not had any access to the internet these past couple months, so excuse my tardiness. **

**For anyone that has any remote interest left in this story, I promise more updates to both my stories very soon! Thank you and have a good night... Or morning.**


	3. Ch 3: Pain, Sorrow, and Discovery

**Disclaimer: I in no way own Pokémon in any way, shape or form, but if I did that would be awesome.**

* * *

Pain, Sorrow, and Discovery

The sun rose into the sky as the world began to awaken to a brand new day. The residents of pallet town began to stir as the rising of the sun brought them from their slumber and back to reality where a new day filled with work and responsibilities awaited them.

Pallet town was a fairly sized village located deep in the middle of the viridian forest, along with a few other smaller villages, that held a population of about 400 to 500 people in total; but not all of the villages residents were mere civilians.

Because the viridian forest was so large, there were many villages scattered about its depths that had to protect themselves from the wild animals in the forest and other villages that sought to increase the amount of land that they owned.

So because of this, Pallet town was one of many villages that trained children to become soldiers when they grow to Adulthood, so that they could protect the village from any outside or inside threats.

One such threat was named The Stone Village. The stone village used to be known as viridian city before it was taken over by a group of soldiers named the stone tribe that contained many powerful men that made short work of the docile viridian city, and from then on viridian city was known as 'Stone Village'.

Pallet town and Stone village had been in constant on & off warfare for the land that each felt that they deserved. This is why, from the earliest age of 7 to 16, boys and girls would be taught to be proper soldiers by instructors in schools named "Training Academy" until they would be seen fit to join the Big leagues.

So along with the many adults that would head off to their given posts, children would awaken to a new day to learn things at the training academy for their future careers as the defenders of Pallet town; but there was one boy who wasn't so thrilled at waking up so early in the morning to do something that he really had no interest in pursuing as his future career.

* * *

Silence; it was all that was heard in one sole house in Pallet town that held one young man that had yet to awaken to the rising sun.

The house itself wasn't anything special to look at with the pale yellow paint that covered the wood it was made from, after so many years the paint was beginning to chip off and the windows were completely bare for everyone outside to see, making the house look like it was abandoned.

Despite the curiosity one would feel as to why this house looked so bad compared to the lively atmosphere surrounding the entire village, every person that crossed its path seemed to try their hardest ignore it, and any curious children that tried to get a closer look would be pulled away by frantic parents as they scolded them for daring to approach the "Cursed House".

At the very moment, the sole resident of the house was beginning to stir as the suns bright rays began to trickle through the window of his bedroom; groaning could be heard as he desperately tried to delay the inevitable and get some more sleep, but alas, the suns calling was too hard to ignore as he regrettably found himself awake.

Ash Ketchum awoke from his slumber with a loud groan as he rubbed his eyelids to get rid of the soreness left behind from his less than adequate amount of sleep.

He had another nightmare. It hadn't been as vivid as some of the ones he had gotten in the past, but it had disturbed him no less. He had been having these nightmares more frequently lately and the lack of sleep was starting to get on his nerves.

Ash Ketchum was a 12 year old boy with a, slightly below average, height of 4 feet and 5 inches. He currently wasn't wearing a shirt, so his lightly tanned chest was bare for all to see, he didn't have much muscle so it was nothing to brag about. A head of raven black hair framed his lightly tanned face, his bangs almost reaching towards his cheeks, which had a pair of weird z-shaped birthmarks on them, and after blinking slightly, revealed a pair of dark brown eyes that currently struggled to stay open. This was Ash Ketchum in his entire entirety, a pretty simple young boy he considered himself to be.

Seeing as he wasn't going to get anymore sleep, Ash slowly crawled out of bed and sluggishly began to shuffle towards a door on his right. Opening the door, Ash made his way through the hallway to the bathroom without bumping into anything, even with his eyes still closed from having just woken up (he knew the insides of his house so well, he could traverse through it blindfolded) and opened the door to the bathroom as he begrudgingly began to go about cleaning himself up for the morning.

After emptying his bladder, taking a shower, and brushing his teeth, Ash was now fully awake and ready to get on with his day. Heading back to his room, Ash stared at the entirety of his room for a moment as his mind went into happier times that he had spent in this room. This room had originally belonged to his parents, but after they died, he had moved his things in here and made it his own so that he could, in a spiritual sense, be closer to his parents.

There wasn't much in the room since he had to sell some things in order to get some extra money, but he had left everything that had originally been there: a queen sized bed lay in the middle of the room, still messy from his recent awakening, a small nightstand at the left side of the bed with a lamp on it that his mother had bought (for when she wanted to read a book at night), and a large dresser drawer with a mirror built in to it off to the side. This was what was left of what had belonged to his parents and it was going to stay that way.

Snapping out of his little trance, Ash headed to the dresser drawer and put on the clothes he would wear for the day. After getting dressed, Ash looked at himself in the mirror to make sure he hadn't put on his shirt backwards again (he had looked ridiculous the whole day). He wore a simple black T-shirt with two orange stripes forming a V near the sleeves, and a pair of light blue denim pants to complete the look.

Satisfied with his clothes of choice, Ash left his room and made his way downstairs to the kitchen to make breakfast. Now on the first floor of the house, Ash made his way to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of milk and placed a slice of bread into the toaster. He didn't have much of an appetite in the morning.

After waiting for about 2 minutes, there was a *pop* as the now crispy brown slice of toast was ejected into Ash's waiting hand. Ash slowly munched on his toast and sipped on his milk as he began to get ready for school.

Ash was one of many children who attended 'Pallet Academy'. There mantra: "A school that will mold young minds into perfection." If that didn't sound absolutely arrogant, then nothing else did.

Pallet academy was where pallet town's children would be taught to become great soldiers and to protect the village with their life no matter what. To sacrifice absolutely everything in order to make sure that the citizens of pallet town remained safe. To put pallet towns well being above your own.

He personally thought that was a bunch of bullshit. Why should he put his well being over people he didn't care about?; but he couldn't do anything, it was required by law that a child be placed into pallet academy by the time they turned 9; and if this was not done, the child would be forcibly taken into custody and be given to a foster family, while the Childs original family would be forbidden to interact with the child for the rest of their lives. It was harsh, but it worked. No caring parent wanted to have their child taken from them, so the law was followed to the extreme.

Having packed his notebooks and other necessities into his backpack, Ash glanced at a clock mounted on the wall. It was 9:07, it was 23 minutes until class started and it only took him about 15 minutes to get there. Deciding to be on the safe side, Ash headed to the front door of his house and headed outside.

Locking the door to his house, Ash turned around, took a deep breath, exhaled, and began to leisurely walk down the street in the direction of the academy.

* * *

(_Inside Ash's house_)

There was the sound of dripping water as a puddle began to form dangerously close to the power outlet that was still plugged in with the toaster.

Ash had neglected to completely shut off the faucet from the kitchen sink, and as a result: today would bring about a radical change in Ash's life.

And it was all because of a simple mistake.

* * *

(_On the streets of pallet_)

Walking down the street, Ash silently made his way to pallet academy while the once energetic and crowded streets became silent with his arrival.

People off to the side diverted their attention to Ash as he made his way to school, staring at him with rapt attention, as if they believed that at any moment he would just suddenly attack them. This happened every single day since the events that transpired 7 years ago, when his parents had died and he had become the last living Ketchum.

It wasn't because they died, no. It was _how_ they had died that had brought about this reaction from the citizens of pallet town.

Ash's father: Fuso Ketchum, had been a soldier ever since he had graduated from pallet academy with full marks, and after that Fuso had gone on to become a very well known and respected soldier in the eyes of the citizens and his fellow troops.

Fuso had been a soldier for about 4 years before he met the woman that would become Ash's mother: Delia Bell. They had been dating for about 2 years when Fuso had popped the question. Needless to say, it had been a very happy day for all.

Since Fuso was a soldier, there were times when he would be called off to fight and regrettably having to leave his worried wife and 2 distraught children that would wish for him to return safely.

One day, Fuso didn't come back. It had been a few years since viridian city had been taken over by the stone tribe, and they had started to become a threat to pallet when they had sent out platoons of soldiers to take over pallet town in order to expand their territory. They had assumed that the people of pallet were docile like the people of viridian city had been. They thought wrong.

Because of this new threat, Fuso had been one of many of the villages' soldiers that had been called to serve their home. The day before Fuso was to leave; he had spent a set amount of time with each and every member of his family; and the last person he had been with was Ash.

The people of pallet knew that Ash had been the last person Fuso had been with before he left because they had spent their specified time together at the public park, playing a game of catch with each other. That had been the last time anyone in pallet town had seen Fuso Ketchum.

He was only 5 years old at the time.

When they received word that Fuso was declared KIA, It had been a huge shock to everyone, especially to Ash and Delia. They had mourned his death for a long time; but everyone had steadily moved on and the conflict with the stone village had been settled for the time being.

Delia most of all was affected by Fuso's death. Every day since then, Delia would cry for the loss of her husband and, even though she tried to hide it, Ash would see her crying her eyes out while he shed silent tears himself. Ash would try his best to comfort his mother; but he was only 5, there wasn't much that he could do except to hug her tightly and bear the sadness along with her while she sobbed her heart out for the man she loved.

Even though it was extremely hard for her, Delia realized that she had to move on. She still had to take care of Ash and he was depending on her to fill the gap that losing his father left behind; so Delia set out to do the things with Ash that his father would do with him and, for a time, all was well for the dwindling Ketchum family.

That is, until Ash turned 6.

* * *

***Flash Back***

_It was nighttime. Ash and his mother were heading home after a day of running errands and finishing it off by picking up some groceries for dinner._

_It was in the middle of spring; so the night air felt refreshingly cool to the touch as a light breeze began to pick up._

_The streets weren't crowded at this time of day, so there were only a few people walking the streets at the time._

_Ash and Delia were walking down the street as they headed for home while the both of them carried a few bags of groceries in their arms, Ash only having 2 small bags because of his still relatively small frame._

_It was a peaceful walk between mother and son as they relished the feeling of spending time together. Because of Fuso's death, Delia had gotten a part-time job in order to make some extra money to support herself and her son and, because of this, they couldn't spend as much time together as they wanted to; but today was an exception. Delia had taken a personal day so that she could spend some quality time with her son._

_And he couldn't be any happier._

_Only a few minutes from reaching their house, there was a pause as all sounds in the immediate area become eerily silent. Right in front of them stood a tall figure that was clothed in nothing but a black bodysuit and a black face mask that hid everything but their eyes. And they were staring right at them._

"_C-can I help you?" Delia said to the stranger while she urged Ash with her hand to get behind her, all the while not taking her eyes off the person in front of her._

"_Yes. Yes you can" The stranger replied in a deep, masculine voice that told Delia that this person was man. "I'm looking for a Mrs. Delia Ketchum." The stranger said while he too didn't take his eyes off her. "You wouldn't happen to be her... would you?" Asked the stranger as his hand began to drift towards his waist._

"_My name is Delia Ketchum." She told the man in front of her, as her eyes followed his hands as they gripped something that was attached to his waist. "Do you need something from me?" Delia asked the man as she prepared to call for help. She would protect her child with her life._

_It was too bad that that was exactly what the strange man wanted._

"_Ah; good. That means that I can kill you without having to look for you all night!" Yelled the disguised man as he charged at her with what was now revealed to be a sword in his hands._

_Having almost no time to react, Delia did what most mothers would do in this situation. She wanted to protect her child._

_Delia pushed her son to the side as far as she could manage and, accepting her fate, she turned to the man and received the full blow of the man's attack as the sword pierced through her chest and punctured her heart._

_Ash stared at the scene with a horrified look on his face as he watched his mother be murdered in front of his very eyes. He continued to stare at his mother as the man pulled the sword out of Delia's body and ran away as onlookers (that weren't still frozen in shock) called for help. He continued to stare at his mother as her lifeless body succumbed to the pull of gravity, and fell to the earth with a sickening *__**Thud**__*. He continued to stare at his mother as blood began to pool around her body and the sounds of rushing footsteps and panicked voices dulled into nothingness and all he could hear was the loud thundering of his heartbeat as his tear-ridden eyes stared into his mother's lifeless eyes. He paid no heed to the paramedics as they began to lift her body onto a gurney._

_He knew. He knew that she was gone. She couldn't be saved. His mother was dead._

_Ash was now completely alone. He was an orphan._

***Flash Back End***

* * *

After that, Delia's body was taken to a hospital; but she was already gone. Investigations were put through in order to find the identity of her murderer, and all the while young Ash was left to fend for himself.

After the tragic deaths of Fuso and Delia, something had gotten into the minds of pallets' citizens. Ash had been the last person that they had interacted with before their deaths and, because of this, everyone began to believe that, somehow, Ash Ketchum was cursed.

Ever since this idea had gotten into their heads, everyone began to avoid Ash as if he were a plague in human form. Parents cautioned their children not to interact with him, or else risk getting cursed with death. Nobody wanted anything to do with the now orphaned 6-year old Ash.

It had been lonely, oh so lonely. Ash had been traumatized from the revelation that he was now an orphan and, since everyone did everything they could to avoid being in his presence, he was left to stew in the misery that he felt.

He had only one thing to keep himself sane for the past few years: The memories.

The house that he lived in contained the memories of the happiest times he had spent with his parents during his childhood, and living there was the only thing that kept him from going crazy and just offing himself then and there. It was morbid to think that a mere 6-year old child would ever consider committing suicide, but the pain and sadness he felt were almost too much to bear without some sort of anchor. The memories were that anchor.

It had been hard but, for 7 years, he managed to keep himself together and try to put the past behind him. There had been a time that he almost lost it.

When the mayor of pallet town had heard of the news, he had decided that, 'out of the goodness of his heart'; Ash was to be sent to the town's orphanage so that he could hopefully have the opportunity to be adopted into a new family.

Ash had not taken it well.

Every time someone attempted to take him to the orphanage he would run away and hide in his home, but there were the rare cases in which he tried to attack the person that tried to take him and, after a while the mayor realized that Ash would do everything he could to stay in that house, so he just gave up and left him alone. A wise choice considering Ash knew how to wield a knife.

Money was something that was of main concern now that he was alone. He had no relatives to take care of him and everyone else made sure to avoid him, so he couldn't ask them for help, so Ash made do with what he already had.

He had put together all of the money that his parents had saved up for emergencies and, with a lot of careful budgeting, he was able support himself well enough that he wouldn't starve to death any time soon.

Because of all this, Ash didn't have the kind of life that a normal child would have. He couldn't play with other children his age because their parents had made sure to tell them not to interact with him. He had to grow up faster than any other child and realize he was the only one that could care for himself now that his parents were gone. No mother to hug and comfort him when he had a nightmare or when he accidently hurt himself. No father there to play with him whenever he wanted or to encourage him whenever he had to do a difficult task.

No. He was all alone and, because of that, Ash had to stop being a child and grow up.

He was only 6 years old.

Lost in his darkening thoughts, Ash didn't realize he had already arrived at pallet academy and he didn't notice the person right behind him that had his arms outstretched with a menacing gleam in his eyes.

Ash was knocked out of his train of thought when he was roughly pushed from behind and fell to the floor in a painful heap. Hearing a familiar laugh, Ash silently sighed and faced the person he hated the most in this stupid town.

Looking down at him with those gleaming amber eyes and that insufferable grin of his, Gary oak laughed to himself as Ash pushed himself off the ground into a standing position.

Gary oak was the most popular kid in school. Standing at an even 5 ft with his spiky brown hair that seemed to attract the attention of girls for some reason, he was considered popular not just for his looks, but also because his father was a veteran soldier who had participated in the war with the stone village and had come back to the honor of successfully protecting the village from danger.

All this had only increased Gary oaks reputation, and everyone in the village expected him to become a great soldier one day, just like his father.

Ash, however, thought that he was half-assed, an arrogant prick, and an evil bastard. Needless to say, Ash hated Gary. The feeling was mutual.

Gary's parents had told him to never interact with Ash but, instead of doing that, he had decided to bully him. Ever since Ash and Gary had met, Gary had taken it upon himself to torment Ash every time he saw him. Gary abused him both physically and emotionally, and they had grown to hate each other. Gary hated Ash because of simple prejudice, and Ash hated Gary because of the unnecessary pain he brought to his already hard life.

Gary wasn't the only person that bullied Ash. After a while, everyone had begun to follow Gary's example. Instead of ignoring his existence like their parents told them to do, everyone began to bully Ash along with Gary. Beating him up, taking his stuff, playing cruel pranks on him, and following him home to bully him there; all of this bullying from them had nearly caused him to go insane. On some nights he would cry himself to sleep, hoping to god that the next day would never come; but life was a cruel mistress and pain and sadness became a daily routine that he had no choice but to endure.

Some years ago, Ash had decided to put on a mask of indifference in order to less likely provoke others to do him harm. He constantly kept his face blank, void of emotion. It partially worked, most of his previous tormentors decided to leave him alone if he was going to show no reaction to their actions. They figured: 'where was the fun in messing with him if he doesn't do anything'.

Keeping his face blank was difficult at first, but he practiced by hitting himself with large objects as hard as he could to see if could keep a blank expression on his face the whole time. It paid off when after school beatings starting occurring less and less when he didn't even flinch from someone punching him.

On the whole, Gary was pretty much the only person that still continued to physically harass him, and he knew that there was no getting rid of him; so he figured that the only thing he could do was to just endure it until he graduated.

"You should look where you're going next time idiot." Gary said as he stared at Ash with a look of fake concern on his face. "You could get really hurt if you don't stop being so clumsy all the time."

Ash fought back the urge to retort with a snarky remark, but decided against it. He instead donned his mask of indifference as he spoke to Gary with an equally blank tone of voice.

"What do you want Gary?"

Gary put on a look of false hurt as he responded to Ash's question. "What, I can't talk to my little friend about how he should be more careful? Oh, Ash, you're too cruel." Gary said as he continued to mock Ash.

Ash simply stared at Gary for a moment before he began to walk away from him towards the school. He didn't want to waste any time talking with Gary just to be unnecessarily mocked by him.

Gary took Ash's walking away from him as a sign of disrespect, and if there was one thing Gary oak hated the most it was being disrespected, especially by Ash.

Ash fell to the earth once more as Gary slammed his elbow into his back with tremendous force and, while he was on all fours, forced Ash to look him in the eye by grabbing him roughly by his hair.

"Learn your place _Peasant_, because if you don't I'm gonna' put you in a whole world of pain. Got that!?" Gary yelled to Ash as he painfully yanked his hair to emphasize his point, causing a few strands of hair to come loose from the force.

Ash only stared at Gary for a moment before he decided to just let Gary get his way. It wouldn't help to possibly make Gary more hostile towards him than he already was.

"Yeah, I got it."

"Good boy, now get to class before I have to punish you for being late." Gary said as he released Ash and made his way into the building with a parting grin.

Ash stood back up and clenched his fists in frustration. There had been so many times where he just wanted to say 'screw it' and punch the living daylights out of that arrogant prick. He was asking for it, treating him as if he were a lesser being.

He took a deep breath, and walked into the building to get the day over with. There really was no use in being late for class.

* * *

(_3 Hours Later_)

Bored, that was only word that could perfectly describe what Ash was currently feeling.

Class had started with the usual shtick: roll call, warm-up quiz, after warm-up quiz about the warm-up, and finally, history.

Oh god how he loathed history. History was basically the instructor constantly preaching about how pallet town kicked everyone else's ass when they dared to start a fight, and it only got worse when the war with the stone village was brought up.

The instructor was a veteran soldier that had briefly fought in the war with the stone village before losing his leg in an explosion, but before that happened, he had killed a lot of the stone village's soldiers out in the field, so because of this, he would constantly brag about how the stone village's soldiers were nothing but weak minded, Lilly livered (he seriously says that!), spineless fools that couldn't swing a sword the right way even if it was taped to their hands.

If anyone from the stone village were here to hear everything this guy was saying, he would be one dead dumbass right about now.

And so, Ash was completely bored out his mind while the instructor continued to ramble about stuff he didn't particularly care about and, for some reason that he couldn't fathom, he chose that moment to look out the classroom window; and what he saw made his eyes widen.

Far off in the distance, he could see a large plumage of smoke wafting in the air and, for some reason, looking in the direction of the smoke gave him a sense of dread.

It was in the direction of his house.

The students around him were startled when Ash suddenly sprang to his feet and proceeded to run out the classroom door in a panic, and the instructor could only hopelessly try to call him back as Ash quickly made his way out of the academy building and directly on the path to the source of the smoke he saw, and all while this was happening, a pair of amber eyes stared at his retreating form through the window.

Gary oak excused himself and began to run in the same direction Ash had run to just moments before.

* * *

(_On the streets of pallet_)

Ash ran like the hounds of hell were chasing him, paying no mind to anyone that was in his way as his eyes remained on the cloud of smoke that he was rapidly approaching the source of.

That sense of dread that he had in the pit of his stomach didn't lessen as he saw a large crowd of people surrounding a burning building, and that dread turned to horror as, once he laid his widened and panicked eyes on the building, he realized that the burning building was his house.

Rapidly pushing his way through the crowd of onlookers, Ash desperately tried to reach his house as fast as his tired legs would allow him to move as he sought to find a way to save the only thing that kept his parents memories alive.

He could feel the burning sensation of the raging fire in front of him as he stared at his rapidly burning house. Pallet town's fire brigade had already shown up as they made to try to douse the flames as best as they could while keeping civilians out of the way so that they wouldn't accidentally get hurt by any wandering embers.

Frantically running towards the waiting inferno, Ash was stopped in his tracks as 2 firefighters quickly grabbed him by his shoulders. "Are you nuts kid!? You head into that fire and you'll die for sure!" Ash heard one of the men say to him, but the only thing he could hear was the thunderous thumping of his heart as he struggled to get out of their hold.

"L-let me go! I have to save my house!" Ash screamed as the flames surrounding his house became even bigger, and began to engulf his house even further. "I can't lose them again! I can't!"

The crowd of onlookers could only stare at both Ash's struggling form and his burning house as the fire brigades efforts seemed to have no effect on the flames.

A loud creaking sound brought everyone's attention to its source: Ash's house. The raging fire took its toll on the aged, wooden frame of the house as the roof suddenly toppled over and brought the entire building down with it. The little of the inside of the house that was visible through the flames was crushed by the collapsed ceiling as everything inside was crushed to smithereens. The very foundation of the house was burned to the ground by the raging inferno as it continued to grow in ferocity.

The 2 men restraining Ash released him as they rapidly went to help their comrades put out the fire. Now that they didn't have to primarily focus on putting out the fire on the building, they would have an easier time putting out the fire to make sure it wouldn't spread.

Mouth agape, Ash could only stare, horrified as the place that had been his home for 12 years was burned to the ground and Tears began to fall out of his wide eyes as he collapsed to his knees and put his hands on the sides of his head while he shook his head in sadness.

"_No... NO... __**NO!**_ _This has to be a nightmare, this can't be real!_ Ash mentally yelled to himself, as he futily tried to believe that this was only another nightmare and that he would wake up soon and his home would not be charred pieces of rubble. But it was hopeless. The proof was right in front of him. Whatever cruel deity that had decided to make Ash's life a living hell had figured that it wasn't bad enough, and as a last act of cruelty, had destroyed the one thing that had kept Ash going all these years.

Ash had now officially lost everything.

The tense silence that permeated the area was broken as the sound of laughter rang throughout the area, and the crowd of people parted midway to reveal the person that dared to laugh during such a tragic moment.

Gary oak laughed like a hyena as he walked straight to where Ash was kneeling in misery over the loss of his home. Gary seemed to think that Ash's misery was the funniest thing in the world to him, showing no remorse over laughing at the now homeless orphan.

"Well Ash, I can't say you didn't have it coming! If you were just a peasant before, now you're even worse than that!" Gary laughed to himself, as he leaned his arm on Ash's shoulder to keep himself upright. "Now you're just a... a... homeless rat!" Gary's mirth increased as he found pleasure in further tormenting Ash.

There was a sharp ***CRACK* **as Ash's fist connected with Gary's face, the force of the punch sending him at least 3ft away from his original position and ending his laughter and replacing it with a grunt of pain.

The silent crowd could only stare in shock as they witnessed this event before their very eyes, many gasping in horror as they laid eyes on his attacker.

Gary fell to the earth with a grunt as he held his right cheek in an attempt to soothe the pain, and shook his head of the cobwebs that plagued his mind after the hit. Looking up, Gary prepared to berate Ash for punching him, but then stopped as his eyes widened in fear.

Ash was once more standing; his eyes glaring hatefully at him as he panted heavily in anger and clenched his fists in rage. Losing the last thing that was precious to him had nearly broken him, but hearing Gary laugh at his misery and pain had been the straw that broke the camel's back.

Years of repressed anger and rage had suddenly surged through him as he finally brought his fist painfully to Gary's face with as much force as he could muster, sending him into a heap a few feet away from him.

Hatred, that was what he felt as he stared at Gary hard enough to burn a hole through his head. The hate that he felt towards Gary in the past was nothing compared to how much he hated him now, at this very moment.

Ash glared into Gary's now frightened eyes as he walked towards him, all the while his fists shook with apprehension and he continued to pant with barely restrained rage as Gary tried to crawl away from him as fast as he could as he pleaded with Ash.

"C-c-come on Ash, I-I-it was just a joke! I didn't mean to laugh, honest!" Gary said as he tried to crawl away from the menacing form of his previous victim. "P-please don't hurt me!" He pleaded as he fearfully watched Ash reach towards with his right arm.

Never before had Gary felt such fear. Never before had he felt the urge to just flat out die right then and there. The sheer, primal rage that he felt coming from Ash at this very moment was more than he had ever experienced in his life. He saw the hate in Ash's eyes, the hate that was for him. Ash's very presence seemed to paralyze Gary's entire body as he was lifted by the collar of his shirt to meet the glaring eyes of Ash Ketchum.

"You... YOU... **I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOU!**" Ash screamed in rage as he cocked his left fist back, and buried it into Gary's stomach.

Gary doubled over in pain as Ash's fist impacted his stomach, the pain bringing tears to his eyes as he coughed up a wad of spit, mucus, and blood on the dirt floor. "_Since when could he hit that hard!?_" Gary mentally asked himself in a moment of painful clarity before it was ripped away from him as another fist impacted his face once more with a painful ***CRACK***.

"**YOU"VE ENDLESSLY TORMENTED ME, SMACKED ME AROUND LIKE YOUR LITTLE TOY, TREATED ME AS IF I WAS A FUCKING ANIMAL, AND YOU"VE ALWAYS FOUND PLEASURE IN MAKING ME MISERABLE! BUT I'M NOT GONNA' TAKE IT ANYMORE! IT'S TIME FOR YOU TO HAVE A TASTE OF PURE, UNADULTERATED PAIN!**" Ash yelled in glee, as he rained punch after painful punch on the defenseless form of Gary Oak, an insane gleam in his eye as he mercilessly beat Gary into the ground, just like Gary used to do to him with his lackeys.

The crowd of people stared in horror as Ash reduced Gary to a mere pile of meat covered in purple and blue welts, blood pouring out of Gary's mouth and face and forming a giant puddle, as he was hit with an endless barrage of fists.

Minutes past as there seemed to be no end to the beating that Ash had in store for Gary, but finally, after 5 minutes of endless torture, Ash's fists stopped impacting Gary's face and finally returned to his sides.

Ash stood up from his kneeling position that he had gotten into so that he could reach Gary without having to grab him again, and breathed heavily in exhaustion as he laid his eyes upon the unmoving, bloody, lumpy form of Gary Oak.

Whatever Ash had been expecting to see, it wasn't that.

When Gary had shown up and started laughing, something inside him seemed to 'snap', and after that, everything was a total blank to him. The next thing he knew, his hands were covered in blood, the person he hated the most was a bloody lump of flesh, and he had the worst headache imaginable.

Horrified at what he had done, Ash ran. He ran past the stunned and horrified crowd of onlookers. He ran past the firefighters that could only stare at him in shock and disgust. He ran anywhere that was as far away as the scene that he had caused. He ran past everything until he reached Pallet town's entrance gate, and stopped.

Turning to face the place that he had lived in, grown up in, played in, and been forsaken in. Ash looked upon Pallet town with tear-filled blood shot eyes, and ran out of the gates as fast as he could.

"_There's nothing left for me here, and after that, everyone is going to think I'm a monster. I should have done this a long time ago, goodbye pallet town. I hope I never have to see you, or anyone in this damn place, again for the rest of my life._" Ash mentally said to himself as he ran, his eyes shut with tears streaming out.

Ash ran. He would run anywhere, as long as he ended up far away from pallet town.

That hell hole held no place for him anymore. He was now a homeless orphan, and a fugitive.

* * *

(_4 hours later-Near the center of viridian forest_)

Ash was exhausted. Running for 4 hours straight had taken a toll on him. He was sitting underneath a large tree, his breaths coming out in wheezing pants as he struggled to catch his breath from the long run.

Adrenaline had been keeping him going the entire time he had been running, for he had no idea if he would be pursued by pallet town's soldiers.

Attacking a citizen was against the law, and punishable by 10 years in prison. He had absolutely no desire to go to prison anytime soon if he had anything to say about it.

The physical fatigue that he currently felt mixed painfully with his mental fatigue. Attacking Gary had been a spur of the moment that had gotten WAY out of control and, despite all the suffering that he had caused him, a part of Ash felt guilty for what he had done, while another felt that Gary had gotten what he deserved and that he should have kept going and, eventually, killed him.

That last thought worried him immensely.

Despite how much Ash hated Gary, he had never in his life thought about taking Gary's life in such a cruel manner. The very thought that Ash had considered taking a life sickened him to no end' and considering the condition that he left Gary in, he hadn't been so far off from doing so.

"_What the hell is wrong with me!? Why was I thinking about killing Gary!? What the hell is happening to me!?_" Ash thought to himself, as he put his face in the palms of his hands and cried in anger and frustration. The day's events had taken a huge toll on him both physically and emotionally. There was no way that things could get worse, right?

Wrong.

The sound of rustling leaves caught Ash's attention, as he cautiously looked to some bushes to his left as 4 figures emerged from the foliage.

His eyes widened. They were stone village soldiers.

Things had just gotten worse.

"Well, well, what have we got here! It looks like we found ourselves a little pallet boy that's all alone and crying for his mommy!" Said one of the soldiers as, he and his grinning counterparts approached Ash like a predator stalking it's pray.

He couldn't move. His body was out of energy for him to use and the fear he was feeling paralyzed to the spot.

He knew what these guys would do to him: They would kill him with no remorse.

The bad blood between Pallet and the stone village was so high, that if any of their opposing soldiers ever happened to meet out in the field, they would do everything in their power to kill the other, and neither was afraid of doing the same with civilians.

The stone village was the very definition of "Sore Losers".

"Yeah, and ya know what we do to chumps from pallet, ya?" Was the response from a soldier that was on his left, his hands grabbing him roughly by the shoulder as he chuckled slightly.

"We beat the shit out of them!" Said another soldier, but as he studied Ash's fear stricken face, his eyes widened and his jaw dropped in shock. Then he gained a nasty gleam in his eye that brought shivers to Ash's spine. "You look familiar. Tell me, are you related to one... Fuso Ketchum?"

4 pairs of eyes widened as the man asked this question, and a sense of dread once more hit Ash like a freight train as he stared at the 4 threatening men; and despite his gut-feeling telling him to keep his mouth shut, Ash nodded his head in confirmation to the man's question.

His response made the 4 stone soldiers laugh in manic glee.

"HAHAHA, YES! I finally found Fuso's brat! After all these years I can finally have my revenge!" The man in front of him said as he laughed maniacally and stared at Ash with an insane gleam in his eyes. "Your old man killed my cousin, brat. So I'm gonna' repay the favor by killing you! But first, hold him down boys, this brat's in for a world of hurt!" The soldier said, as his comrades picked up Ash by his shoulders and held him still.

"I'm gonna' enjoy this!"

Ash screamed in pain as the stone soldier buried his fist into Ash's stomach, a glob of blood coming out of his mouth as the pain continued to rack his body.

"There's more where that came from kid!"

Punch after painful punch rained upon Ash's defenseless form. He could feel the bones in his body break from the painful impacts of the soldiers' large, hard fists. Each yell of pain only seemed to encourage the man to punch him even harder as he and his comrades laughed at Ash's screams of pain.

Hours seemed to pass as the forest was filled with sound of fists meeting flesh, and the sounds of pained screaming. By the time the revenge-seeking soldier was finally done, the sun's rays that could be seen from the canopy had changed from a light yellow, to a cascade of a dark orange-yellowish color.

Panting in exhaustion, the revenge-seeking soldier laid his eyes proudly upon his work.

Ash was a wreck, plain and simple.

His left eye was swelled shut from rapidiately being hit, blood poured out of his broken nose and mouth as he wheezed heavily, and his shirt had been torn to shreds, revealing various bluish-purple bruises that were leaking blood on the grass below. Sometime during the beating, Ash had been lowered to his knees in order to allow easier access to his face and the one man that wasn't holding him down had joined in briefly; by rapidiately punching him in the torso, stomach, or anywhere on his upper body in general.

Cracking his fists to get rid of the pain in his knuckles, the man reached for something strapped to his torso, and brought it out slowly to make sure that Ash would see what it is.

Ash's single, unswollen eye widened in horror as he gazed at what the soldier had in his hand: A sharp, rusted dagger, ready to be used.

"I had fun beating on ya' kid, but my revenge isn't over until your cold, beaten corpse is laid at my feet." He said as he used his other hand to grab hold of Ash's chin, and raised it, exposing his vulnerable neck. "Have fun in hell with your old man." The soldier said as he held the blade to Ash's throat, and prepared to slit his throat and end Ash's life.

"_NO! It can't end this way! Please, someone... anyone! HELP ME!_" Ash mentally yelled, as the cold steel slid against his throat and the darkness claimed his vision as he lost consciousness.

* * *

(_Unknown location_)

Ash awoke with a groan as he struggled to lift himself from the floor, his muscles protesting movement after everything he had been through.

Once he was standing, Ash looked around and was surprised to see he wasn't in the viridian forest anymore, in fact, he wasn't exactly sure where he was right now.

Darkness; it was everything that he could see in front of him. The only source of light was the exact spot that he had woken in, but, other than that, there was nothing around him that could tell him where he was. No landmarks, No people, Nothing.

"Where am I?" Ash asked himself as he continued to look around to see if there was anything that could give him any clue as to how he had arrived here, or how he was supposed to get out! "How did I get here?"

Taking a step forward, Ash was momentarily startled when a bright, blue light flashed around him. The light was so bright, that he had to cover his eyes, less he risk going blind. "_What the hell is that!?_"

After a moment, Ash moved his arm that was concealing his eyes away from him and his eyes widened as he saw a bridge of pure light right in front of him that he was sure had not been there before.

"Should I? I don't think I'm gonna' accomplish much by just standing here, so might as well." Ash shrugged his shoulders, decision made, as he stepped on the bridge of light and, after making sure it wouldn't suddenly collapse underneath him, he made his way to wherever this bridge would take him.

The bridge wasn't as long as he thought it was, as evident when Ash reached the end, and laid eyes on the most beautiful object he had ever seen.

On a medium-sized white, marble pedestal lay a sapphire-tinted glass sphere that contained a bright ball of light blue mist that flowed gently throughout the sphere, almost as if the mist was a fish gently swimming through water, being guided by nothing but the gentle pull of the waters current. Only adding to its unique beauty, there were multiple symbols that were engraved upon the sphere, he couldn't begin to describe what they looked like or what they meant.

It was simple in design, but it was surely one of the most beautiful objects he had ever seen.

A gentle, almost silent, cough brought Ash out of his trance and caused him to jump slightly. Looking to where the sound came from, Ash saw a figure covered by a light brown cloak standing beside the beautiful glass sphere. "_Has he been there the whole time?_" Ash asked himself mentally as his cheeks burned a bright red in embarrassment.

"Are you going to stand there and stare at me all day, or are you going to ask me the obvious question about where you are?" A masculine voice asked with a deadpanned tone, the voice coming from the figu-man- in front of him, as he stared in his direction.

Deciding to end the awkward silence, Ash walked towards the man in front of him until he was only a couple inches away from him, but for some strange reason, the man's eyes were not visible through the hood of his cloak, no matter how hard he tried to look. Another cough brought Ash's attention back to the matter at hand, as his previously embarrassed face changed to one of seriousness.

"First of all, where am I? Second of all, what the heck is that sphere-thingy, and finally, wasn't I about to die?" Ash asked the mysterious man in front of him.

"I can't really answer your first question because, technically, this place doesn't exist; but to answer your other questions, well: that "Sphere-Thingy" as you put it is your core, and yes, you were about to die, and you will die if we don't hurry this up." The man said to Ash, as his voice carried a hint of urgency in it.

"_My core!? What does that even mean?_" Shaking his head to clear himself of that thought, Ash caught the hint of urgency in the man's voice and quickly asked, "What do you mean when you said I'll die if I don't hurry up?"

"Ash... I want you to answer one question, and one question only! Your answer will determine whether you live, or die." Said the mysterious man in a serious tone in his voice and, seeing Ash nod his head in slight confusion, he asked, "What would you do if you could wield a great power, 'The power to protect', The power to protect those most dear to you! Answer this question Ash!"

Seeing that he was being entirely serious, Ash closed his eyes and thought about his answer very hard. What would he do with the 'power to protect'? What was there to protect that required him to be asked this question so seriously? And what did he mean by "the power to protect those most dear to you"? He didn't have anyone to protect, he didn't have anyone that was dear to him.

So, what could he do? What could he say?

Decision made, Ash opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and answered the question.

"I honestly don't know what I would do with the kind of power you're asking me about. I don't have anyone that I would want to protect, at least... not yet. But I would also want to protect myself with that kind of power, so my answer to your question is, I don't know what I would do." Ash said with a tone of finality in his voice, a grim, but serious, look on his face as he waited for the reaction to his response. He didn't know if his answer could be considered "acceptable", but he was prepared for anything.

The mysterious man stared at Ash for what seemed like hours, as he pondered Ash's answer. It was sort of what he expected to hear because it was true, Ash **didn't** have anyone he considered dear to him, he didn't have anyone that he would consider worthy enough to protect. Ash's future was basically a blank slate at this point, and who knows? Maybe, just maybe, Ash would live a better life out in the world.

Nodding his head slightly, the mysterious man walked towards the glass sphere next to him as he spoke to Ash the words that he would keep in mind for the rest of his life. "I understand. At this point, you really don't have anyone to protect. It would be unfair to just suddenly let you die without giving you a chance; so I'll give you that chance. Ash, prepare yourself, because your life is about to get strange; and when I see you again, you better have your true answer." The mysterious man said and, as he placed his hand on the glass sphere, a bright light began to flood the place they were in and began to surround Ash in a sphere of blue light.

"_W-WHAT THE HELL IS GO-_"Ash thought to himself when, all of a sudden, his body was racked by a sharp pain the likes of which he had never experienced.

The beatings that he used to get from bully's after school, the time he had fell from the second floor of his house and landed head-first on the floor, and the beating he had just suffered at the hands of the revenge-seeking stone village soldier all paled in comparison to the pain that was coursing through his body.

Ash opened his mouth in a silent scream, as the blue light engulfed him completely, and he once more lost consciousness.

* * *

(_In the viridian forest_)

Ash's body fell to the ground as the men restraining him finally let go. The soldier wielding the bloody dagger in his hand peered at the corpse of the son of the man he hated the most in the world. He had finally done it; he had finally avenged his cousin. Now he could return to the village and proudly state that he had killed Fuso Ketchum's son to his family.

"Come on boys, let's head home. We got some celebrating to do." He said as he wiped the blood from the dagger on his pants and, along with his comrades, began to walk away when, all of a sudden, the ground began to shake, and the light in the clearing they were in seemed to focus on something behind them.

Looking to the source of the disturbance, 4 pairs of eyes widened once more as Ash's body began to levitate in the air, surrounded by a mystical blue light, mouth wide open in a silent scream of pain.

Before anyone had a chance to wonder what was going on, the blue light around Ash's body violently exploded in a large pulse of crackling energy, the force of the blast flung the soldiers into the surrounding tree's, and killed them instantly.

After the explosion settled down, Ash's body fell to the earth once more as he groaned in pain and struggled to stand back up.

Once he was back on his feet, he looked himself over to discover that some of his wounds had been healed and he wasn't coughing up blood anymore, though the pain he felt was still immense. Not sparing his surroundings another glance, he began to limp out of the destroyed clearing and make his way to a safer location.

* * *

(_1 hour later_)

Ash was grateful that he hadn't run into anymore patrolling soldiers, or else he would have been done for by now.

His body still felt incredibly weak from the beating the soldier back at the clearing had given him, and the weird explosion had seemed to drain him even further than he already had been before.

He was so tired, that he couldn't muster the strength to wonder what he had experienced, he was so tired that he didn't care that he had inadvertently killed four stone soldiers without even touching them, he was so tired that he didn't stop to think about if the mysterious man he had met was all an illusion, he was so tired that he didn't stop to think about how he was even alive, when he could still feel the phantom sting of the sharp dagger cutting through his jugular vein.

He was so tired, that he couldn't possibly dodge the punch that smacked right into his face and sent him tumbling painfully to the ground.

Looking up, Ash was surprised to find the stone village soldier that had "killed" him right in front of him, heavily injured as he clutched at his heavily burned right arm and glaring at him hatefully while panting heavily.

"You... k-killed them! YOU FUCKING BRAT! I'M GOING TO MAKE SURE I KILL YOU THIS TIME!" He said as he lifted Ash by the collar of his tattered shirt with his good arm, and stared into Ash's wide, frightened eyes. "You and your damn family should have never existed! I should have been the one sent to kill your mother all those years ago!"

Ash's previously fearful eyes, narrowed as he heard the man say those words, and his fists clenched in anger as a new energy seemed to emerge within him.

"Yeah, I should have been the one to kill your mother! I could have had a lot of fun with that hot piece of ass! Fucking that **BASTARD** Fuso's beloved wife, **now that would have been the ultimate revenge! AHAHAHAHAHA**!" The stone village soldier laughed maniacally with a lecherous grin on his face, as he pictured himself violating Delia's body while being watched by Fuso as he begged him to stop with tears in his eyes. The stone soldier had gone insane with anger and rage, no longer in touch with reality.

Reality was about to fuck him up.

While this was going, Ash's rage increased as he listened to the insane soldier ramble on about how he would have had his way with his mother if she were still alive, how he would break her mind and make her beg for his cock to be inside of her after he was done with him, how he would make Ash watch his mother be the slut she always was.

Once more, Ash's rage reached a level that no one could ever fathom.

"**SHUT UP!**" Ash yelled in absolute rage, as he cocked in fist back and launched his fist into the soldier's stomach as hard as he could.

The affect was instantaneous.

The soldier's laughter ended as a blinding pain erupted from his midsection. Looking down his eyes widened in horror as he saw a fist _INSIDE_ his stomach and he began to scream in pain as he pushed Ash away from him, revealing the true extent of the damage Ash had done to him.

Ash looked to see the damage that he had caused and the look in his eyes changed from hateful to horrified.

If he had thought that the damage he had done to Gary was bad, then this was even worse.

There was fist-sized hole in the soldier's stomach that had gone all the way to the other side; Ash had punched a hole right through the man's body.

Ash could only stare, horrified as the soldier struggled to try to put his intestines back into his body, to no avail. Puddles and puddles of blood pooled around him and turned the once vibrant green grass into a disgusting reddish-brown. The man was so desperate to stay alive, that he put his own hand into the hole in his stomach to try to keep his blood and guts in place, but inadvertently made the hole even bigger, and his death even closer.

Ash stared, horrified at his hands as he saw the soldiers crimson blood dripping from his fingers to the grassy floor, his mind traumatized beyond belief as he realized he had just ruthlessly murdered someone in cold blood.

Ash's scream of horror mixed in with the screams of pain from the slowly dying soldier.

* * *

**Chapter 3, done! **

**I haven't updated in quite a while and for that I apologize.**

**Some stuff has been going on in my life, so it's been kinda' hard to find time to write; but now that stuff is over and done with!**

**More updates from now on! I already have the next chapters for AQfL and TLoA:DP about halfway done, so I should be able to upload them in a few days.**

**I also went back and made some minor changes to the earlier chapters of this story, and I'd like to think that it's turning out pretty well!**

**Review please! It gives me inspiration and lets me know that you're interested in more.**

**Constructive criticism is encouraged so that I can improve my writing skills, but flames... I don't very much care for flames _**

**Thank you for reading and have a nice day/night!**


	4. Ch 4: A yellow mouse and the weirdo

**Disclaimer: I in no way own Pokemon in any way, shape or form, but if I did that would be awesome.**

* * *

A yellow mouse and the weirdo

The leaves rustled gently in the morning breeze as bright rays of sunlight shone through the forests canopy, signifying the start of a new day for the inhabitants of the viridian forest.

One such inhabitant was making their way through the trees to get some breakfast.

A yellow blur could be seen dashing from tree to tree, traversing the tree branches as if it had run along them its whole life. The yellow blur paid no heed to any of the forests' hidden dangers as it swerved from left to right, searching for any sign of its favorite fruit among the green foliage.

After searching around for the better part of 2 minutes, the yellow creature caught a glint of red in its peripherals and squealed happily as it rapidly began to approach a tree full of bright red apples.

Stopping on one of the branches of the apple tree, the yellow creature reached towards the apple closest to it with its stubby yellow paws and yanked the apple from the stem and, chirping in delight, the yellow creature feasted on its prize with gusto.

Finishing the apple in its paws, the creature tossed the core to the ground as it reached for another apple from the tree, that is, until its long, pointy ears twitched at a peculiar sound and its sensitive nose picked up a very strange scent coming from the forest floor.

The creature crouched down on all fours as it cautiously began to make its way to the forest floor to investigate the source of the strange sound and smell.

Landing on the ground with a soft tap, the creature gasped slightly as it took in the scene that lay before his very eyes.

The creature could safely say that it had solved the mystery as to what the strange scent it had picked up was.

Blood, lots and lots of blood

The creature's eyes traced the trail of blood to its source and it once more gasped as it saw the source of the blood was a human, a dead human. To go along with the massive amounts of dried up blood on the grassy floor; the creature could see the deceased human's intestines spilling out a large hole in its stomach.

From the looks of it, this human had died a slow and painful death.

The creature was careful not to step in any of the puddles of dried blood on the ground as it continued to study its surroundings. Something or someone had to have killed this man, and they could still be around, waiting for the chance to strike at another hapless victim.

The creatures' eyes, after circling the clearing, landed on another human that was lying underneath a tree. The creature would have assumed that this human was also dead but it could see the steady rising and falling of the humans' chest, which meant that the human was alive, but unconscious.

Tilting it's in head confusion; the creature cautiously began to approach the unconscious human. There was no telling if this human was friendly or not and it could possibly lash out at any given moment.

The creature was now close enough to see the humans face. It looked to be a child judging by its slightly youthful features, the slightly angular shape of the humans chin told the creature that it was a male human, and seeing the 2 Z-shaped marks on its cheeks caused the creature to walk closer to examine them.

The creature looked closely at the weird marks on the unconscious humans' cheeks while lightly touching the small red circles on its cheeks. Did this human child have electric pouches in his cheeks just like it?

Deciding to take a chance, the creature reached out with one of his paws and lightly poked the humans' leg and backed away a few feet from the human just in case.

After a minute of silence, the creature walked back to his previous position in front of the unconscious human and began to rapidiately poke parts of his body over and over again to see if it would get a response and, after a few seconds, the creature stopped and looked at the humans face for any reaction to its presence and actions.

Seeing as how the human wasn't responding to its prodding, the creature decided to take drastic measures.

Holding its stubby arms to its chest, the creature put on a look of concentration as bright yellow sparks began to emit from the red marks on its cheeks. The creatures' eyes narrowed in focus on its target: The currently unconscious human.

After charging its energy for a good 10 seconds, the creature gave a powerful roar as it unleashed its built up electricity.

"Pi...Ka...**CHU!**"

* * *

(_Unknown location_)

Ash groaned slightly as he began to awaken from his slumber, the wounds, both emotionally and physically, had taken their toll on Ash's mind; so he had lost consciousness soon after his second encounter with the Stone village soldier.

Taking a moment to regain his bearings, Ash sat up and began to stretch to slightly alleviate the stinging sensation in his muscles from overuse.

Once he was done stretching, Ash stood up and immediately took note of the fact that he was no longer in the viridian forest, rather, he was smack dab in the middle of what looked like a large city, filled to the brim with tall buildings that reached high into the cloudy skies of wherever he currently was.

"_What the hell! Where am I?_ Ash thought to himself, as he started to walk around and study his new surroundings with an inquisitive and confused look on his, "_Just a while ago I was in the viridian forest, but now I'm in the middle of a city!? Why does all this weird shit have to be happening to me all of a sudden?!_" Finding nothing visibly remarkable out on the streets, Ash walked up to one of the large buildings closest to him and looked inside through the window.

Inside the building all he could see was nothing but empty space. There was no furniture, no household appliances, no nothing. There was no sign of any human inhabitance in this building. Seconds later, something in his peripheral vision caught his attention. Something inside the building was moving!

What he saw caused a sharp gasp to escape his gaping mouth.

A 14-month old Ash Ketchum could be seen inside the building taking careful and unsteady steps towards the waiting arms of his mother and father, while a 10 (almost 11) year old Aaron stood to the side, watching his baby brother with proud eyes and a warm smile on his face.

"Come here Ashy! You can do it! Just come to mommy and daddy!" Delia's encouraging words put a smile baby Ash's face as he renewed his efforts to reach his mother.

"Come on little man, come to mamma and poppa!" came the equally encouraging and ecstatic voice of Fuso Ketchum as he watched his infant son slowly waddle towards them, "Oh, man I wish had a camera so I could record this. This is a really memorable moment!"

Ever so slowly, Ash progressively made his journey to the arms of his loving parents until, finally, Ash reached his mothers outstretched arms and was immediately swept into a hug by his delighted mother and his face was showered by kisses from his mother as he giggled in childish glee.

Fuso and Aaron only looked on, content to watching Delia love the heck of the toddler as they looked on with pride and joy in their eyes.

Ash began to back away from the buildings window, causing the vision of his mother cuddling his baby self to disappear.

"_W-w-what the hell was that?! What the hell did I just see!?_" Ash began to hyperventilate as he turned about face and began to run down the freakishly long city streets, "Where am I, and How the hell do I get out of here!?" Ash yelled as he ran along the giant maze of buildings to his sides.

While he ran, Ash frantically looked around for any sign of an exit to this strange place, but only saw similar "Visions" that he had seen previously. His first birthday, His first words, His first food fight at the family dinner table, and his first spanking; so many of his childhood memories, even some he didn't remember, were played before his very eyes as tears started streaming from his eyes.

"_Where am I? Why am I seeing all these memories of mine? Why is this place so goddamn frustrating?_" The tears began to blind Ash as he ran with no destination in mind while the sight of the memories he had of his parents shot his heart with an indescribable pain.

Because the tears pouring from his eyes were currently blinding him, Ash didn't notice the figure that was standing right in front of him, so it came as no surprise that he immediately crashed into him/her, the force of the collision knocking them both to the ground.

As Ash recovered from the collision, the figure began to speak with an aggravated tone in his voice, "You should watch where you're going Ash, you could really hurt someone if you just bump into them like that!"

Hearing the man's voice, Ash opened his eyes and looked to see who he had crashed into in such a weird place.

By the persons masculine voice, Ash could safely say that the person in front of him was a male; but that was the only thing that he could get about this person because of the fact that, whoever he was, he was wearing a light blue cloak that covered his entire bodily appearance, all he could see were the man's light brown eyes staring at his prone form as they both continued to stare at each other for several awkward seconds.

After several seconds of Awkward silence, the mysterious man spoke, "Are you just gonna sit there and stare at me, or are we gonna get the inevitable introduction over with?" The man said as he held his hand out to help Ash off the ground.

Snapping out of his little trance, Ash gratefully took the man's hand and stood up as he spoke, "O-oh, right! My name is Ash Ketchum and I hope you don't mind me asking but... wait... why are you asking me to introduce myself when you already know who I am? And how do you know my name in the first place?!" A lot of weird stuff had been happening to him recently, and it was all starting to get on his nerves. He wanted answers, no matter what it took to get them.

Taking a moment to think about how to respond, "Well... first of all, it's really only the principal of the matter that I wanted you to introduce yourself; common courtesy ya' know. Second of all, I already know your name because I've known you since you were born." Was the man's cryptic response, he could _feel_ Ash's rising ire as Ash's eyes narrowed into a glare at him after his questions weird answer.

"What do you mean you've know me since I was born? I would've remembered meeting someone as weird as you, so there's no way that you could have known me since birth!" Ash yelled as he increasingly became more and more frustrated, why was this guy so weird!

Chuckling slightly, the mysterious man decided to stop messing with Ash and get to business. There was much he to hear before he woke up. "You could say I'm sort of your guardian angel; at the exact same time that you were born, so was I. Ash, you've been wondering where you are this entire time but, the truth is, you're still in the viridian forest, at least your _physical _body is." Explained the mysterious man as his slightly concealed eyes narrowed and his voice took on a more serious tone to it.

"My _physical _body?!" Ash asked as his face took on a confused expression before his eyes widened and a look of dread overcame his face, "Does that mean that I'm... d-dead?" Ash asked as he once more started to tear up.

Ash was taken out of his temporary slump when his 'Guardian Angel' burst into laughter at his words, doubling over and holding his stomach with both arms as he shook his head in mirth, "Heh, no Ash, you're not dead. What I meant to say is that, your physical body is still sleeping off yesterday's escapades off, your _spiritual _body is here, for the simple fact that this place that we're in is your mindscape!" The man said, finishing off his explanation by throwing his arms out in a flourishing manner, gesturing to the giant city that they were in.

"My... mindscape?" If Ash wasn't confused before, then he certainly was now; though he did understand that he _wasn't_ dead (which was a huge relief). "Physical body... Spiritual body? Could you please be just a _little_ more specific?"

Sighing slightly, the mysterious man took the time to thoroughly explain things to him, "What I mean is, while your physical body is resting, your spiritual body is here because of certain circumstance that shall not be discussed at this point in time and, while you're here, I will shed some light on some things you might be curious about."

Nodding his head in slight understanding, Ash simply put the matter of him apparently being in 2 places at once to the side for the time being and asked a question that had been bugging him for some time now, "Alright, my first question is... what's your name?"

Slightly taken by surprise by his question, the mysterious man nervously scratched the back of his head, "Well to tell you the truth, I really don't have a name. I never really needed one ya' know because I don't really get any visitors."

"You don't have a name? but I gotta' call something." Ash said in bewilderment. How could this guy not have a name?! Everyone had to have a name! "If you don't have your own name, why don't you just make one up?"

Giving it some thought, the man hummed in agreement as he said the first thing that came to his mind, "Alright, how about you call me... Din!"

"Din?"

"Yup, it's short, easy to remember, and it sounds pretty cool. Yup, Din it is! Just call me Din from now on!" Din said with a hint of finality in his voice.

Mouthing it to himself a few times, Ash nodded his head in agreement. It _was_ pretty easy to remember and it did sound kind of cool. "Alright, I'll call you Din from now!" Ash said with a happy grin on his face.

Giving a slight smile (not that anyone could see it), Din cleared his throat to gain Ash's attention, "Yes, well, now that that issue resolved, I believe you have more questions to ask me?" Ash stared at him blankly for a few seconds before his eyes widened in realization and thoughtful expression enveloped his face.

Nodding slightly, Ash adopted a serious expression as he asked his next question, "Why did I see all those visions of my parents and myself when I was younger?"

"Those? Those visions that you saw were memories of your past, I did say this place was your mindscape." Din said as began to gesture to the tall buildings around them, "These buildings that you see around you? They're basically 'Records' that keep track of all your memories and-

Before Din could continue with his explanation, a bright yellow light engulfed Ash's mindscape and lightning bolts began to shoot down from the gray clouds above. One of these bolts of lightning struck Ash and he collapsed to his knees as he screamed in pain and suddenly disappeared from his mindscape.

Immediately after Ash disappeared, the yellow light engulfing the sky disappeared, the lightning bolts that were furiously shooting from the clouds disintegrated into thousands of spheres of pure light, and the giant city was peaceful once more. No sign of any damage dealt to any of the tall buildings despite the fact that they should have taken at least _some_ damage. It was as if nothing had ever occurred.

In the middle of it all was a confused and irritated Din that stared at the scorch mark that Ash had previously been standing in.

"... What the hell just happened?"

* * *

(_Viridian forest-moments later_)

The unconscious body of Ash Ketchum immediately jolted to life as loud screams of pain rang out through the entire forest for everyone to hear.

After what felt like hours, the surge of electricity that had rudely awakened Ash stopped, and a severely charred and irritated Ash Ketchum was left in the aftermath of the blast.

"_Whoever did that is a dead man!_"

A squeak of amusement alerted Ash to a presence in the forest that was most likely his assailant and, whipping his head in that direction so fast that a clear _crack _from his neck was heard, Ash laid his glaring eyes on smiling yellow mouse who was looking at him with clear amusement in its eyes, not to mention the wide, toothy grin that was on its furry face.

Ash and the yellow mouse stared at each other for several seconds before they both said the one thing that came to their minds at the exact same time.

"Hey"

"Pi"

And just when Ash thought things couldn't get any weirder.

* * *

**And that's a wrap!**

**This chapter is waaaaaaaaaay shorter than the last one, but it should hold you off for now. It's plainly obvious who the yellow mouse is.**

**It's Pikachu!**

**I introduced an OC in this chapter that will be seen (and heard) many times in the near future, and a little tidbit about Pikachu himself. He loves those darn apples of his!**

**In the next chapter, Ash and Pikachu will interact for the... second time and the first fight of the story, and I really don't know how well I'll do on that, but you'll just have to find out next time!**

**So please review, leave constructive criticism, and have a nice morning/day/night!**


	5. Ch 5: The Catalyst, NoodlesRevenge

**Disclaimer: I don't own Pokémon in any way, shape, or form; but if I did, that would be pretty cool.**

* * *

The Catalyst, Noodles=Revenge

"So your name is…. Pikachu?"

Currently munching on some apples, Ash and the yellow mouse, now known as Pikachu, had proceeded to get to know each other after getting over the little "Incident" between them, but you could only learn so much about a yellow, electric mouse that could only say its name and many variations of it.

After his rude awakening, Ash and Pikachu had decided to leave the blood-stained clearing so they wouldn't have to see (or smell) the bloody entrails of the soldiers decaying corpse. Pikachu had kindheartedly lead Ash to a nearby stream to wash the dried blood off of his hands.

He did so with great haste.

Pikachu had quickly deduced that Ash wasn't a threat, and both had proceeded to bond very quickly. Having never interacted with a human before, Pikachu was glad that he could make a new friend. You don't make a lot of friends out in the forest when everything wants to eat you.

While Ash couldn't understand Pikachu, Pikachu could understand Ash; so Pikachu listened intently as Ash explained to him as to how he had ended up unconscious, clothes torn in various places, and covered in blood in the depths of the viridian forest. It was strange, but Ash felt like he could trust Pikachu. Maybe it was because he hadn't judged him like others did? Or maybe because he had been the only friendly face he had seen since he ended up there.

Talking about his problems relieved quite a bit of stress from Ash's shoulders and in return, even though it was a small way to repay the yellow mouse's generosity, Ash supplied him with a bunch of apples and scratched Pikachu on some hard to reach places, which he showed his gratitude by rubbing up against his leg and purring like a cat while he "Cha'ed" in contentment.

It was a pretty cute sight to behold; it even managed to put a smile on his face.

Ash had no idea what time it was, but he could safely say that he had spent quite a few hours just bonding with the cute, yellow mouse and, while he was quite reluctant to do so, Ash realized that he had to keep moving if he didn't want to run into any more trouble. Patrolling Soldiers and hungry wild animals were his primary enemy while he was here.

* * *

(_Viridian Forest-Exit_)

Living in the large and dangerous place that was the viridian forest for so many years, Pikachu knew his way around the place; so it didn't take as long as Ash thought it would to find an exit to the large forest. If he had been alone who knows how long it would have taken him to traverse the twists and turns of the humongous forest, not even taking into account all of the wild animals that would have been glad to make him there next meal.

It put a relieved grin on his face to finally be out of that place, "Glad we're finally outta that place; we should get going before it gets too late Pikachu." After walking a few feet forward, Ash looked behind him to see that, for some reason, Pikachu wasn't following alongside him.

Shaking his head with a sad look on his face, Pikachu's ears drooped as he pointed back at the forest, squeaking quietly as it conveyed its message.

Ash's eyes widened before, he too, became saddened. This time he perfectly understood what Pikachu was telling him, how could he have been selfish enough to think that Pikachu would leave his home just to travel with a human that he had only known for a short while. The viridian forest, extremely dangerous as it is, was still Pikachu's home.

Ash slowly walked back to Pikachu and kneeled before the saddened mouse, "I understand Pikachu. This is your home; I won't make you leave it just because you're my friend." As he said this, tears began to fall from Ash and Pikachu's eyes. He and Pikachu had become friends in such a short amount of time, making a friend of Pikachu had helped him to briefly put the past events that had landed him in the viridian forest behind him. Ash, never in a million years, would have thought that his first real friend would be an electric mouse, but he cherished that friendship all the same.

"Pikachu"

Ash almost asked what Pikachu had said, when, all of a sudden, Pikachu hopped up and clung to Ash's chest with his small, furry arms in what was obviously a hug. This seemed to be Pikachu's way of saying goodbye.

Cracking a soft smile, Ash gently wrapped an arm around Pikachu's small, furry body in a one armed hug, "Goodbye to you too, I'll miss ya Pikachu. Believe it or not, but… you were my first real friend." A small, slightly muffled "Pika" was all Ash needed to hear for him to know that he had been heard.

After several long moments, Ash and Pikachu released each other from their embrace, and slowly started to walk away from each other, neither looking away from each other until the shadows of the forest began to consume Pikachu's bright, yellow fur and, even through the veil of darkness, Ash and Pikachu continued to look into each other's eyes until a declining hill on his path forced Ash and Pikachu to break eye-contact.

With a sigh, Ash began to make his way forward. He had no idea when, or even if, he would see Pikachu again because he really didn't have any plans to return to this place; but someday… Ash had a feeling he would see Pikachu again.

* * *

(_Town of Ace_)

Walking for several hours were starting to take a toll on Ash as he walked on an invisible path that he followed. If he continued to walk forward he was bound to reach _some _sort civilization… right?

Fatigue and hunger were Ash's main problem right now. He had kept walking since he left the viridian forest without taking a break, and all that walking was tiring him out, and his feet hurt like nothing else. The apples that he had shared with Pikachu in the viridian forest had been the only thing he had eaten all day, his stomach constantly 'Grumbling' every few minutes.

Needless to say, Ash was about ready to just drop dead right then and there. He was that tired!

By the time Ash had arrived to the only town for miles, the sun was already starting to set. The yellow-orangish glow of the setting sun provided quite a nice view for the weary Ash as he finally stumbled into town.

Ash was exhausted, his body was still covered in dried blood and a healthy layer of grime, his feet were killing him, his stomach demanded sustenance or else it would start to eat itself, and his clothes still looked like they had gone through hell and back. Plus, he was starting to smell too.

As Ash walked through the small town, he couldn't help but notice that there weren't any people anywhere. Everywhere he looked, there was no one in sight, it was actually kind of creepy. Was this place a ghost town or something?

Before he could think anymore about this strange occurrence, something quickly caught Ash's attention. A smell, and not just any smell. It was the single, greatest, most wonderful smell he ever had the privilege of experiencing.

The wonderful smell made his stomach grumble with great ferocity. Whatever this smell was, it obviously led to food, something he desperately needed at the moment. And so, with a slight skip to his step, Ash followed the scent with a blissful look on his face, all previous thoughts of the town now forgotten in favor of satisfying his hunger.

His nose held high and his eyes closed in contentment, Ash wandered the strangely empty streets of the small town while only relying on his nose to navigate himself to his desired destination.

After a few minutes, Ash's nose led him to where the scent was at its strongest: A large wooden building with a saloon-style front door seemed to invite him in with the delicious scent that emanated from inside. Another loud, gurgling growl from his stomach urged Ash onward.

Setting eyes on the interior of the building, it seemed the interior was almost as bland as the exterior. The paint on the walls was visibly chipping, the air seemed to be riddled with dust particles that it made it hard to breathe, and the walls were lacking in any decorative curios that would attract the attention of any customers. If it wasn't for the great smell that he could now tell this place was the source of, he probably wouldn't have bothered setting foot in this place.

Before he did anything else, Ash noticed a small poster on the wall that mentioned this place had a room for rent. He took a moment to remember that for later.

Taking a seat at a table closest to him, Ash looked around to see only a couple of people were in the restaurant, including himself. What was strange about them though, was that every once in a while they would look behind their backs with a noticeably pensive look on their faces, almost as if they were afraid something was going to suddenly pop-up behind them and attack them.

Ash didn't ponder this long before the sound of someone clearing their throat caused him to turn his attention to a person that was standing in front of him.

A boy, probably a little older than him, stood in front of him. He looked to be at least 4'9" in height, a hairnet bound up his black hair with a few loose bangs framing his face, he was wearing a white and dark blue apron that clashed with his pale skin, and his grey eyes seemed to convey a look of Apathy as he stared at Ash. Whether he noticed Ash's current attire of a torn-up T-shirt that had trace amounts of dried blood on it, he wouldn't know.

"Well, are you going to order something or just sit there and stare at me? Because let me tell you now, I don't swing that way kid."

The boys voice brought Ash out of his thoughts and he stared at the boy in confusion for a moment before his look of confusion turned to that of annoyance as his mind finished processing what he had said, an embarrassed blush adorning his face as he responded, "Uh, right. Can you tell me what's good?"

The boy took a moment to stare at Ash before he responded, "All right, I'd recommend trying the rice balls, Sushi, or Sweet dumplings, but that's just my opinion. Now, what do you want?" He seemed to be getting annoyed at having to take the time to answer his questions.

They all seemed like good choices, but they didn't sound like what he was looking for. Taking another look around, Ash spotted a man a few tables away from him eating something out of a large bowl with a pair of chopsticks and, taking a quick sniff, the delicious smell from earlier filled his nostrils and his eyes shined with delight, "I'll have what he's having!"

The boy followed Ash's line of sight to the man a few tables away, "Him? You want a bowl of Miso Ramen then, is that it?" A quick nod answered his question.

Seeing the boy walk away to prepare his order, Ash's moment of temporary delight faded as he was given time to think now that he was alone. A particular question had been nagging at him since he left pallet, what was he going to do now? He had gotten out of the viridian forest but, other than that, he didn't really have any plans for the near future. While he had been slightly sad that he had to leave his home for what had been the majority of his life, Ash was then happy to know that he was now free from that wretched place. With no strict rules that only allowed him to do the barest of things, he was now free to do whatever he wanted, but therein laid the problem.

What _did_ he want to do?

At least back in pallet he had had a career choice to reach in the end: become a soldier for your home. But here, he didn't have anything but the shirt on his back and the money he still had in his wallet (that had miraculously survived the thrashing that his clothes had taken in the forest). Ash now pretty much had an empty slate to fill, but nothing in mind to fill it with. It was all so much for a tired 12-year old to think about at a time like this.

A large bowl being placed in front of him brought Ash out of his thoughts, the smell quickly captured his attention as his stomach roared once more now that he was so close to food, "Enjoy your meal, just call if you need anything else." The boy from earlier said in a bored tone of voice.

Ash paid no attention to the boy's retreating figure as he focused solely on the bowl of noodles in front of him, his mouth watering as he laid eyes on the broth covered noodles along with a hard-boiled egg and few strips of Chashu pork. Deciding that his poor stomach had waited long enough, Ash split the pair of chopsticks that had been left beside the bowl and, though sloppily, he picked up a bundle of noodles and immediately placed them in his waiting mouth.

* * *

"_What a weird kid._" Was Damien's current train of thought. He had certainly met his fare share of strange people during his time working in this restaurant, but none had been like that weird kid he had just delivered a bowl of ramen to. "_What kind of kid just shows up, covered in blood, to a public place where people might get the wrong idea? He's lucky today's been kinda slow, or else who knows what could have happened._" Shaking his head at the thought, Damien headed out to take another customers order, but suddenly stopped when he sensed it was quiet, _too _quiet.

Damien, for the second time that day, laid eyes on the weirdest thing he had ever seen. The weird kid he had served a few minutes ago was messily gobbling up the bowl of ramen with great gusto. Widened eyes of nearby patrons watched with a mixture of awe and disgust as the teen paid no regards to his table manners, broth splashing onto the table and floor, bits and pieces of chashu pork flying into the air and landing on the floor or an unlucky persons head, and the disgusting slurping noises only intensified the disgusting sight.

"More please!"

Damien's (along with everyone else in the restaurant) jaw dropped as Ash grinned in delight while holding the now empty bowl, he had just made a show of absolutely _Devouring _a bowl of noodles, and now he was asking for more!? "O-ok." Was all that Damien could utter as he hesitantly grabbed the empty bowl, all the while keeping his eyes on Ash to make sure that he didn't try to eat him in his hunger induced craze.

This would become routine for the next hour or so, Damien would bring out a bowl of ramen that would be instantly devoured by Ash in the same messy manner as the first one while everyone else watched in disgusted awe, their food all but forgotten. Bowl after bowl was stacked right beside Ash as he plowed through every bowl of ramen in mere seconds, Damien working on overdrive as he struggled to meet the boy's demands. "

_How can one kid eat so much?!_" Was the question that Damien was asking himself as ran as fast as he could to get each bowl of ramen to the insanely hungry boy, "_I'm gonna run out of ramen or bowls, and I don't wanna find out what'll happen if he isn't done by then!_" Luckily for him, one last bowl was all Ash needed to satisfy his insane hunger; so it was no wonder that Damien felt immense relief as he gave one last bowl to the eager teen.

That is, until he saw the 1 person on this earth that he didn't want to see had chosen that exact moment to pay a visit.

All eyes (except for Ash) were on the three men who had entered the restaurant, their eyes wide with fear.

"Hey Damien! Long time no see, eh?" One of the three men said in a snarky tone.

Damien glared at the man who had called out to him in a familiar manner, his eyes seemed to light up in anger at the sight of the man, "I just saw you 2 days ago Ace. What do you want" Whoever these men were, Damien certainly didn't like them.

"Aww, c'mon Damien! Lighten up pal! I'm just here to collect, that's all" Ace said. Ace was a tall, slim figured man with greased back green hair that accentuated his pointed face; his lightly tanned skin greatly contrasting with the black leather jacket he wore over a gray wife-beater, a pair of black denim pants with holes in them completed his _gangster _look. His posture was slightly crooked as his knees seemed to be constantly tilted at an angle. The cocky grin on his face just _screamed_ arrogance.

If anything, Damien seemed to glare even harder at Ace, "What the hell are you talking about? I already paid you for the week." At this, Ace's grin widened to the extent that it almost looked like it would split his face in half.

"Right right, that you did. But here's the thing, the boss has unfortunately, for you, not so much for us, called for an increase in rent. So if you'll just kindly hand over the cash I'll be on my way." Ace chuckled as he held out his hand in an expectant manner.

Gritting his teeth was all Damien could do to keep himself from punching Ace in the face right then and there. "_No-_ He shook his head as he headed to the back. _–it wouldn't do anyone any good to start something with these guys, it'd be best to just leave things as they are._" Damien opened a hidden compartment in the wall and opened the box that was inside to retrieve the money that he kept in case of emergencies.

Giving a tired sigh, Damien closed the hidden compartment and headed back to where Ace and his lackeys were waiting for him. "There, there's your money. Now get out of my restaurant." Damien said with finality in his voice as he handed Ace his hard earned money.

Damien watched as the smug bastard chuckled as he stuffed the bills into his pocket and signaled the two burly men behind him to leave. All was well until Ace took that moment to notice Ash, oblivious to the tension in the air as he slurped up his noodles with his eyes closed. "Well well well, what do we have here? I've never seen you around here kid, and if I've never seen you before that means that you've never paid your rent before. So kid, am I gonna have to sic my boys on you, or are….. Are you even listening to me?!" Ace's face seemed to redden in anger as Ash seemed to ignore him in favor of gorging himself on his meal. "Kid, you better answer me or I'm gonna-!" Ace placed his hand roughly on Ash's back and, to everyone's surprise and horror, Ash immediately tensed up, turned around to face Ace, and sprayed the entire contents of his mouth onto Ace's face.

The building was eerily silent as everyone stared in fear at the frozen form of Ace, dripping wet and covered in chewed up noodles. Their fear intensified when Ace began to violently tremble. Steam began to permeate from his body as his sheer rage caused his entire body to redden.

"**YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD BRAT!**"

* * *

The moment those noodles had touched Ash's tongue, his taste buds **EXPLODED **in ecstasy at all of the clashing flavors in his mouth. After that, everything pretty much became a blur to him as he went on a feeding frenzy of ramen, his body moving on auto-pilot as his stomach craved more and more of the delicious noodles until its hunger was satisfied

That one last bowl of ramen that was placed in front of him he chose to savor instead of simply devouring it, if he could eat this kind of stuff everyday then to heck with his problems!

Ash was so focused on savoring the succulent flavor of the noodles, that he didn't pay attention to the proceedings around him, he still paid no attention to anything around him when someone began to speak to him with a threatening tone in his voice, but he did pay attention when that same person put their hand on his back hard enough to startle him, which caused him to choke on the noodles that he had been swallowing at the time, and then proceeding to haphazardly turn to where the person was still standing, and proceeded to spit the contents of his mouth into the persons face.

"**YOU'RE FUCKING DEAD BRAT!**" Ash coughed slightly to clear his throat while staring blankly at the fuming man in front of him, shouting death threats and shooting daggers at him through a glare that would have killed a puppy on the spot, "Uh… sorry?"

"Sorry? **SORRY!?** YOU BETTER HAVE SOME MAJOR CASH ON YOU KID! 'CAUSE THIS JACKET YOU MESSED UP COST ME 250,000 RYO!" by this time everyone in the restaurant had run away in terror, none of them wanting to find out what Ace would do to the poor kid, "SO COUGH UP THE DOUGH, OR I'LL HAVE MY BOYS MESS YOU UP" Ace roughly pushed Ash to accentuate his threat.

Ash's eyes widened to epic proportions, "250,000 RYO!? I don't have that kind of money! Who the hell would buy a stupid jacket that costs that much!?" Ace was seething at this point, this stupid kid messed up his top dollar jacket and he was refusing to pay up? He was preparing to give the go ahead to the two burly men behind him, when something around Ash's neck caught his eye.

Damien was prepared to take action if Ace decided to beat this kid up, "_He may be weird, but he hasn't intentionally done anything wrong!_" Damien tensed when Ace seemed to suddenly calm down, that familiar cocky grin taking its place once again. If anything, that was a bad sign.

Ash blinked in confusion when a now calm Ace lazily pointed to something around his neck and, reaching into his shirt, he was surprised to find, in the palm of his hand, a small, silver encrusted sapphire necklace that shined beautifully in the buildings dim lighting. "_I still have this? I thought_ _I left it back in the house before it burned down!_" Needless to say, Ash was happy that, by some miracle, the necklace that his mother had given to him on his third birthday was still in his possession.

That joy turned to anger when Ace held his hand out in an expectant manner, he spoke, "That thing looks like it could net me a pretty penny on the market! Hand it over, and I'll let bygones be bygones." Ace was assured that he would hand over his necklace, everyone was too afraid of what would happen to them to refuse his demands.

"No"

Too bad for him, that Ash wasn't afraid of him.

"N-No? What the hell do you mean, NO?!" Both Ace and Damien (more so Damien) were surprised at Ash's refusal to give Ace his necklace, "Kid, do you know who I am? I'm Ace, the son of Jackal Ruso! 'Cause of his power, he made me the head of this puny little town! Now give me that necklace, or else!" This stupid kid wasn't going to get in the way of him getting a promotion.

If anything, this made Ash glare even harder at Ace. He clutched the necklace to his chest tightly as he spoke, "I don't care who you, or your father, are! I'm not giving you this necklace; it means more to me than it ever could to you or your stupid gang!" Ash was practically growling at this point, his eyes flashed with a dangerous glint as he was prepared to do anything to protect the last thing he had of his mother.

Growling in anger, Ace cocked his fist back and prepared to knock Ash's lights out, "You stupid kid! I'm gonna teach you a hard earned less-!" At the last moment, Ash ducked underneath Ace's fist, causing him to stumble slightly, giving Ash the perfect chance to retaliate.

Seeing Ace stumble, Ash growled as he clenched his right hand into a fist, cocked his fist back, and launched a hard uppercut into Ace's chin, launching him into the two burly men that had come in with Ace, making all of them fall to the wooden floor from the impact.

Damien was slack-jawed at what he just witnessed, "_He just hit Ace! Is he crazy?! Does that kid have __**any **__idea what they'll do to him for this?!_" All he could do was stand there as Ash glared at Ace while baring his (surprisingly) slightly extended canines. "You're not getting your filthy hands on my necklace!"

The two burly men helped Ace get to his feet as he reeled from the punch Ash had given him, checking to make sure that his jaw wasn't broken, "You… you-!" "That's enough Ace!"

Everyone looked at Damien as he glared at Ace while he held a large butchers knife in his hand, pointing it at Ace with a dangerous look in his eyes, "I think it's time for you to leave." He hoped to Kami that this course of action wouldn't get him killed

Ace switched between looking at Ash and Damien as he set his mouth in a nasty snarl and, making up his mind, he snapped his fingers and began to walk back to the restaurants entrance, "Let's go boys, no point in messing with these losers anymore." The two men nodded in agreement and glared at Ash and Damien momentarily before walking after Ace's retreating form.

Right before Ace's body completely left the entrance, his voice rang clear throughout the night, "Don't you dare think for a moment that this is over." It was clear that those words were meant for them as they watched the three men finally leave.

The air remained tense as Ace's parting words reverberated through both of their minds, the threat clear in his voice.

"Soooo…. You wouldn't happen to have that room still up for rent, would you?" Ash said, nervously rubbing the back of his head with a sheepish grin, and pointing to the small poster near the entrance. "I kinda need a place to stay for the night… I'll pay whatever amount, honest!"

And just like that, the tense atmosphere was switched out with an awkward one. Damien blankly stared at Ash for the longest time, causing his sheepish grin to widen and beads of sweat to roll down his face until finally, "…. One night. You can stay for one night, but then you have to leave."

Satisfied with his answer, Ash quickly asked one last question, "Is there any chance I could use your bathroom, maybe a change of clothes? I'm… not in the best of conditions right now." Another awkward blank stare accompanied by a slight nod was all Ash needed for a confirmation.

Sighing in resignation, Damien led his temporary guest to the upstairs lodge where he lived. He sincerely hoped that his actions wouldn't come back to haunt him.

* * *

(_A Few hours later_)

The night sky, devoid of the moon, cast an ominous air to the small town. Everyone was bundled in their homes, hoping for better days. Those who had bore witness to the incident in the restaurant silently praying for the well being of the mysterious raven-haired boy.

After a refreshing shower and receiving a new set of clothes, Ash had made himself comfortable in the guest room of the restaurants upstairs lodge. A bare, wooden room and a moderately comfy bed was certainly better than the night he spent laying on the hard ground of the viridian forest.

"Good food, a warm shower, clean clothes, and a comfy bed. What more could a guy ask for?" Ash sighed in contentment. The spat he had earlier with Ace did nothing to ruin his current mood as he stared fondly at the necklace in his hand. "I may have lost the house, but I won't lose you. I swear this on my life." He would die before he ever thought of losing his precious trinket; it was truly all he had left of his parents.

Putting the necklace back where it belonged, Ash sighed once more as he lay himself in the covers and closed his eyes to get a good night's sleep.

"_Ash, we need to talk_"

Startled by the voice that came out of nowhere, Ash sat-up immediately and rapidly looked around for the intruder, "W-Who's there?! Show yourself!"

"_Ash it's me, Din. Remember?_"

Hearing the admittedly familiar voice, Ash calmed down and blinked in confusion. "Din? Where are you? I can hear you, but I can't see you." If memory served correctly, Din was supposed to be in his mindscape. Had he gotten out somehow?

"_Think what you want to say Ash; I'm still in your mindscape. You have no idea how stressful it's been trying to talk to you again._" Oh, well that certainly explained it. "_Anyway, what happened? There was a flash of light, and then you were just gone!_" Din said.

Ash was about to respond out loud, when he remembered what Din had told him. Closing his eyes, Ash focused slightly, "_Well, after I 'disappeared' from my mindscape, it turns out that a curious yellow mouse woke me up with its strange electric powers. Do you know anything about that?_" Ash asked, maybe Din had some answers.

"_A yellow mouse? Strange electric powers?_" Din pondered slightly, searching his memory for an answer. "_Oh! I think what you encountered was a rare creature called a 'Pokemon', if I'm right, not a lot of people get to see them. I think you read about them once. _" Ash's widened in realization at Dins answer, that name seemed awfully familiar. He made this fact known as he spoke, "_Pokemon? I think I did read something about those things some time ago, but how did you know that?_"

"_Well, I'm in your mindscape, which pretty much gives me access to all of your memories. I've lived in your mindscape for pretty much your whole life, so all I really had to do was think about your question, and Viola! The memory showed up, clear as day._" Ash was both amazed and slightly freaked out at Din's explanation. He pretty much had a librarian working in his head 24/7/365; but if he needed an answer to a question, Din was his go-to guy.

Before anymore could be said, a strange sound seemed to echo throughout the room, "_What's that noise?_" Din asked. Ash was curious as well. The noise seemed to be a faint beeping noise, but it didn't seem like it was coming from this room. "I think it's coming from downstairs." Deciding to satisfy his curiosity, Ash got out of the bed, put his shoes on, and walked out the door into the dark hallway.

Now that he was outside, the noise seemed to be slightly louder but he was still sure that it was coming from downstairs, "_Be careful Ash. Who knows what it could be._" Ash took Dins words to heart as he cautiously made his way down the stairs as quietly as he could, so as to not accidently wake up Damien.

Setting foot on the lower floor, Ash could now clearly hear the strange "beeping" sound, it seemed to be coming from under a lone table that rest in the otherwise barren dining area, "That's strange." Ash said as he approached the table and prepared to look underneath. "I thought me and Damien put away all the tables. Did we miss one and neither of us noticed?" As ludicrous of a thought that was, it certainly was a possibility.

That idea was thrown out the trash when Ash laid eyes on the strange, metallic device, strapped with duck tape, to the underside of the table.

Ash may have had no idea why one looked so weird, but he could certainly recognize a bomb when it was staring him right in the face.

Eyes wide, Ash slowly stood up, took a deep breath…. And bolted up the stairs like a bat out of hell without a moments haste, "Damien, wake up! We gotta get outta here!"

Reaching the door to Damien's bedroom, Ash tackled the door with enough strength to nearly blow it off of its hinges and immediately ran to the now awake Damien, put his hands on his shoulders and began to shake, "Damien let's go! The place is gonna blow!"

Blinking the sleep out of his eyes, Damien glared at Ash as he continued to get shaken up by the panicked teen. Damien pushed Ash off of him and hoped that it would get Ash to explain why he had just busted into his room.

To no avail, of course.

"Why the hell are you still sitting there?! We gotta go now, or we are going to die!" Why could he not understand what he was saying? He was still just sitting there with a confused and angry look on his face. "Do I have to spell it out for you?! There. Is. A. Bomb. In. Your. HOUSE!" That certainly got the message to the guy.

"What!?" Damien's eyes widened. There was a bomb? In his house?! "Show me, or I refuse to believe you!" He desperately hoped that this was some kind of prank.

"Follow me!"

Ash quickly led Damien downstairs, the beeping noise did nothing to put Damien's mind at ease and actually _seeing _the bomb itself only worsened Damien's fears, "It was them." Damien said in a grave tone. "Of course Ace would do something like this, he always gets his way." Damien clenched his fist as tears rolled from his eyes, "Let's go, there's no way we could find a way to disarm it in time." That was all it took for Ash to bolt out of the restaurant, but Damien took a moment to say one final thing before he left. "I'm sorry… Grandmother."

* * *

(_Town of Ace-Outskirts-a few minutes later_)

Miraculously, no other building had been caught in the ensuing blast. Mere moments after Ash and Damien had left, the bomb had detonated and completely destroyed the restaurant, leaving nothing but charred remains of various foods and burning wood.

Ash and Damien stood on a hill in the outskirts of the town, staring at the burning wreckage that provided great food for one, and held fond memories for the other. Ash bowed his head for the loss, while Damien clenched his fists in anger while tears fell from his eyes.

"They're going to pay"

Ash looked at Damien in confusion; his words had been but a mere whisper in the wind.

"**THEY'RE GOING TO PAY!**"

Ash stepped back, startled, as Damien roared to the heavens and ran off into a small wooded area behind them, "O-Oi! Where are you going?!" Receiving no answer, Ash ran after the angry and distraught teenager. "_What do you thinks gotten into him, Din?_"

Din was silent for a moment before he responded, "_My best guess would have to be that, just like you, that place of his held some sentimental importance to him, and, since it's been destroyed, he wants revenge._" Din said as Ash began catching up to the distraught teenager in front of him.

After a few minutes of non-stop running, Ash and Damien arrived in a small clearing in the woods and stopped, both of them panting slightly from exertion.

"D-Damien… what are… we doing here?"

Damien remained quiet as he walked to the base of a tree, got on his knees, and began to dig into the dirt with his bare hands.

Ash quietly watched as Damien continued to dig into the dirt and, after a few minutes, Damien began to speak, "I don't know what you're doing here Ash, but I have a reason for coming here."

"And what reason would that be?"

Damien began to get angry as the pace of his digging began to increase, "Ace did something that I find unforgivable, and I'm going to get my revenge." Damien's digging suddenly stopped as he seemed to find what he was looking for, "I'm going to get my revenge" As he said this, Damien pulled a long, black box out of the hole he had dug, placing it on the ground and began to open it. "If it's the last thing I do." The box opened with a *Click*.

Ash looked on with a confused look on his face, asking the obvious question, "How are you gonna get your revenge?" Ash's confusion only increased as Damien began to chuckle, pulling 2 long objects out of the box.

Ash's eyes widened once he saw what they were.

Unsheathing a pair of Katanas, Damien's glaring eyes could be clearly seen in the swords' silver metal, "I'm going to **KILL HIM!"**

* * *

(_Mysterious house-1 hour later_)

"You know, you don't _have _to come with me. It would have come to this sooner or later, whether or not you were involved."

Ash and Damien were hiding in a thick shrub as they observed the guarded building a few feet away. Apparently the gang that Ace worked in had their headquarters closer to the town than everyone thought. In their arrogance, they didn't think anyone would take the foolish risk in trying to infiltrate it at hopes of ultimately getting to the head of operations.

"I know, but I feel responsible for what happened. I'm going to help you, and that's that!"

Ash and Damien had had this conservation quite a few times on the journey to the hideout, with Ash convincing him that he would help, while Damien tried (to no avail) to convince him to let him to do it himself. No one could say he didn't try.

Shaking his head at Ash's stubborn attitude, Damien inspected the sheathed katana at his side. "_I'm a little out of practice, but nothing a life or death situation can't fix._" He had been prepared to get his revenge or (most likely) die trying, but throwing Ash into the mix slightly complicated things, "Do you even know how to fight?"

"I can punch, I can kick. I think that's enough for a bunch of low-grade thugs." Ash said with grin, punching the palm of his hand to accentuate his reasoning.

Damien's eye twitched as he stared at Ash with an aggravated look, "Those 'low-grade thugs' have weapons, which puts us _both_ at a severe disadvantage. I'm going to need a little more than that to convince me."

Ash sighed as he crossed his arms and looked forward, readying himself for what was to come, "Look, don't worry about me. If something happens, I'll let you do your thing and I'll leave, Deal?"

Damien stared at Ash for a few moments, calculating the pros and cons of having to take Ash with him into what one would consider a proverbial hell and, after a minute, he shook his head and sighed, "Deal." He said in resignation.

With that done, Ash and Damien continued to observe the man guarding the door to the hideout, trying to find the perfect moment to initiate an ambush.

That moment came when the guard closed his eyes and yawned.

"NOW!" A blur of leaves was the only warning the guard received to the arrival of intruders, and the startled guard suddenly found himself coughing up blood from Ash's momentum charged fist slamming into his stomach, the pain sending him into unconsciousness a second later.

At Damien's surprised look, Ash grinned, "Ha ha, I told you I could punch." The moment done with, Ash and Damien once again became serious, their expressions void of humor as they opened the now unguarded door and headed into the headquarters.

* * *

(_Gang headquarters-10 minutes later_)

"Why did they have to build into the freakin' sewers?!"

Ash and Damien had soon learned that the hideout was _way_ bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Instead of a towering mansion full of goons and riches, these guys had gotten smart; they built the entire headquarters _underground_! They had built through, and around, the maze of pipes that was the sewers, thugs and crates of who knows what scattered everywhere. In the ten minutes that they had been in there, they had already knocked out or killed 20 men. Ash certainly wasn't happy to know that Damien had absolutely no problem in killing these people, and he made that fact quite clear while they fought there way through a group of knife wielding thugs.

"Did you really have to kill those guys? It was just fine knocking them out!" Ash said while he ducked a thugs knife thrust and delivered a right hook into his face for his troubles, "I know these guys have done some… questionable things, but I don't think they deserve death." Ash may have been against killing them, but he was all for seriously maiming them as he haphazardly roundhouse kicked a thug trying to sneak up behind him.

Damien blocked a slice from one of the thugs with the flat of his blade, pushing him back and quickly stabbed him in the torso, yanking the blade out roughly to add to the pain, "I understand that you don't like it Ash, but you're going to have to realize sooner or later that some people-" Damien quickly slashed a fast approaching thug across the chest, causing him to yell in pain, "-like these guys, deserve their fate!" He stabbed one of his Katanas into the throat of a collapsed thug who tried to grab his legs, the man gurgling and clutching at his throat as he slowly choked to death on his own blood.

Ash growled as he drove his shoulder roughly into a thugs stomach, causing him to double over right into Ash's rising knee, the thugs head flying back as he yelled in pain and something about his nose being broken. "Your right, I don't like it. I don't think I want to like taking someone's life." He dodged a charging thug and used his gathered momentum to slam him into the sewer walls, knocking the man unconscious upon impact.

Damien took the liberty of finishing off the last of the group by stabbing him through the heart, re-sheathing his katana afterwards. "I don't enjoy taking someone's life either, but, over time, I've accepted that, when it comes to people like Ace, it's a necessary evil." As he said this, he and Ash were walking away from the site of battle, feeling no closer to getting to the 'boss' than they did before. "I commend you for upholding your morals, but you have to learn that things might not always end as you want them to."

Sighing, Ash shook his head while wiping the blood on his knuckles on his pants, "Whatever, let's just keep walking. This place stinks; I don't want to stay here any longer than I have to." Ash said in regards to the puddles of sewage on the dirty floor. "What do you think are in those crates that we saw back there, think it's something important?"

Damien thought for a moment before responding, "Most likely drugs, probably weapons. So, yeah, I think they have some pretty important stuff in those things." Damien suddenly stopped to stare at something on the wall, "Ash, do you see that?" He said, pointing to a suspicious purple spot on the wall.

Ash squinted slightly as he looked to where Damien was pointing, "Hmm, do you think maybe?"

Shrugging absentmindedly, Damien, along with Ash, approached the oddly shaded wall, "Only one way to find out."

Ash and Damien put their hands on the wall and _pushed_, putting their combined weight into it as a slight crumbling sound could be heard coming from the wall. After a few seconds, the wall suddenly gave in, surprising them, and causing the 2 teens to crash into the floor with a resounding *Thud*.

Standing up with a groan, Ash was the first to lay eyes on the metallic-grey hallway that they had landed in, "I think we found a secret entrance, Damien." Damien could do nothing but agree as the change in atmosphere certainly was a surprise.

In contrast to the smelly, dreary look that the sewers displayed, this place certainly said "Evil headquarters", relatively cleaner walkways did seem like a place where more thugs would dwell.

"Let's keep moving, I don't doubt that someone heard our 'Grand entrance' and I'd rather not have to fight gun totting assholes, thank you very much."

Cracking a small grin, Ash nodded as he followed after Damien as they headed deeper into the thug-ridden hideout, keeping watch for any surprise attacks.

* * *

"You got the plan?"

"Yeah, we wait, ambush, and overwhelm them as much as we can before they can aim their sights on us."

After half an hour of walking around and sneaking around patrolling thugs, Ash and Damien had come across a very tight spot. Just beyond the corner they were hiding behind, there were about 8 thugs that had guns at their side, ready for them to use at a moment's notice. They would have had their heads blown clean off if they had just rushed in without _some _sort of plan; which was what they were doing as, just like with the guard earlier, they waited for the right moment to strike.

Which was considerably harder to do this time around since, unlike the thugs they fought in the sewers, these guys were constantly on high alert.

Thankfully for them, a distraction was made for them when the thugs began to talk to one another.

"Hey, Bob?" Asked unnamed thug #1.

"Yes, Seto?" Asked Bob.

"Your fly's down." Seto chuckled as the other thugs began to crack up at the rookies' expense.

"I-It is!?" Bob quickly checked to make sure if his fly was indeed down.

Seto, along with the others, quickly burst out laughing as the rookie thug blushed in embarrassment at having been humiliated so easily.

"CHARGE!"

Before the thugs could react, Ash quickly tackled one of the thugs who, by reflex, grabbed onto the closest person next to him to keep himself standing. Both of them went tumbling to the floor. Damien quickly slammed the pommel of one of his katana into one the thugs' forehead, while he swung his second katana in a slicing motion at another nearby thug, and cut his throat open.

The other 4 thugs quickly got over the surprise of an ambush and grabbed for their guns, only to find that Ash, having dealt with the 2 thugs he knocked down, had gotten to them first. He took aim with one of the guns and fired. The bullet flew right into the chest of one of the thugs, killing him instantly.

Ash looked on in shock at what he had done, dropping the guns in the process as his widened eyes stared at the person he had just killed.

"I-I k-killed him!" Ash began to tear up as his mind became consumed by the negative thoughts of having killed someone again. "I-I didn't want to kill him! It was an accident!" Ash tried to assure himself, So preoccupied by his thoughts that he didn't see the approaching thug who took advantage of Ash's momentary breakdown to strike.

"I didn't-!" Ash was cut off as a fist collided with his tear-stricken face, knocking him down to the floor in the process.

Before the thug could make a move to strike again, the blade of one of Damien's katana was shoved through his chest from his back. "You shouldn't take your eyes off of your opponent." Damien said as he slowly pulled his sword out of the dying mans' body.

With the thugs disposed of, Damien stared down at Ash as he tried to convince himself that it had been it an accident. "When I first took the life of a man, I reacted just like you're doing now." Damien said, knowing that Ash was listening. Ash looked up at Damien, his tear-streaked eyes bringing considerably darker memories to the forefront of Damien's mind. "I know what it feels like Ash, to have to bear the guilt of knowing you took a man's life and you're right, it was an accident. You can break down later, but right now isn't the proper time to lose your bearings, now get up!" It might have seemed a little harsh to push Ash forward after having to suffer such a traumatizing ordeal, but both of their lives were at risk being this deep in enemy territory; so stopping to cry over a dead body wouldn't help them in the slightest.

"Y-You're right. Sorry about that." Ash shakily stood up, looking at anything but the dead bodies that were scattered around the area. "I can have a mental breakdown later, but right now, we have a job to do." Regaining his bearings, Ash and Damien left the scene of violence behind and headed deeper into the hideout.

Ash and Damien had been walking for the better part of an hour and, other than running into even more thugs, they hadn't found anything that would have signaled the presence of someone as important as Ace. If what he said about being the son of an apparent crime boss was true, then he had to be hidden somewhere in this gigantic maze of metal.

It didn't look like they were anywhere near finding the room that held Ace.

That is, until the floor underneath them suddenly disappeared.

Staring blankly into the dark hole that would take them to who knows where, Damien sighed in aggravation as he spoke, "We just walked into a trap, didn't we." It was more of a statement than a question.

"Yup."

"Thought so." Ash and Damien remained oddly silent as gravity finally took hold, and they were sucked into the large hole in the floor.

* * *

A loud *thud* alerted Ace and the 20 men beside him to the arrival of the intruders, "I was wondering when they would wander into that trap." Ace said with that same cocky grin on his face, smugness practically _oozing _out of him. He stared at Ash and Damien as they groaned at the hard impact with the floor. "About time you got here, brats! I was starting to think you were dead." Of course he knew that would rile them up, not that they could really do anything about it.

Gritting his teeth in pain, Damien growled as he slowly got to his feet. Ash not too far behind him as they both glared at the smug asshole, "Ace! We finally found you!" Damien unsheathed his Katana to show he meant business. "You better kiss your ass goodbye, 'cause I'm not leaving here without making sure that you die today!"

Ace chuckled in amusement as he gave the men around him the signal to surround the 2 teens, "Au contraire, Damien. I knew that you would come after me after I blew up your little restaurant; I merely played the waiting game and waited for you to come to me. And like the idiot you are, you took the bait." The thugs surrounding the 2 teens wielded a variety of weapons, some unfortunately wielding firearms as well. "If your little friend had just given me his stupid necklace, then I wouldn't have had to blow up your house! I certainly think it was a fair deal!"

Ash growled at Ace as he clutched the necklace underneath his shirt, restraining himself from being reckless and rushing into the group of armed men. "Fuck you! My mother gave me this necklace! It belongs to me and me only!" Ash yelled.

Damien shook his head at Ace's words, "Whether or not Ash was involved, you and I would have inevitably gotten into a situation that would have lead to this exact situation.

"Maybe you runts didn't notice but… you're surrounded! What the hell do you think the two of _you _can do against all of us!?" Ace began laughing at the hopeless situation that he had led the 2 teens into, assured of his victory.

"_Ash, can you hear me?!_" Dins voice snapped Ash out of his aggravated state as he mentally nodded. "_Ok, good. Now, I need you trust me. I'm going to do something that could help you out, but you're going to feel a little funny_." Din said, his tone holding no humor in it as he waited for Ash's confirmation.

Only taking a moment to think about it, Ash nodded his head with a smile on his face, "_I trust you Din. If it helps us in the long run, do whatever you have to do._" Ash couldn't see it, but Din smiled at his response. "_Ok Ash, get ready. We have no time to lose!_" Damien said.

Ash closed his eyes and braced himself for the ensuing pain, having experienced a lot of it in the past. When he felt no pain consuming his body, Ash blinked in confusion as he spoke to Din, "_Din, nothing hap-!_" Before Ash could finish, a strange feeling began to emanate from within him, it wasn't painful but it did certainly feel strange. Warm, but strange.

The strange feeling began to spread throughout his entire body and Ash gasped slightly when he saw that his hands were surrounded by a faint blue glow. "_Beautiful._" Was all Ash could say about this new occurrence.

Damien, along with everyone else in the room, also noticed the strange blue glow that surrounded Ash, but unlike him they could see that it didn't just surround his hands, it was around his entire body. The strange, but admittedly beautiful, glow surrounded Ash like an ethereal flame, dancing with an invisible breeze as everyone marveled at this new change.

"_Now Ash, GO!_" Din's yell was all it took for Ash to snap out of his wonder. He glared at Ace before looking to Damien, "Damien, I'll handle the thugs. You handle your business with Ace!" And with that, Ash disappeared in a blue blur, immediately reappearing behind one of the 20 thugs and slugging him In the back of the head.

Damien looked on in awe for a moment before Ash's words registered in his mind, and he glared at Ace as he unsheathed both of his Katana. "I don't know what's gotten into him, but I like this change. Don't you… Ace?" he said in a mocking tone, a cocky grin similar to Ace's plastered on his face.

Growling in anger, Ace quickly slammed his hand onto the switch hidden under the chair he had been sitting on. He began to laugh wildly at Damien's confused expression, "I just set this place to blow up in about 6 minutes! If I'm going down, then I'm gonna take you and your little friend with me!" Ace quickly charged at Damien, catching him by surprise long enough to get a hit in, "You ruined everything Damien! A few more months and dad would have given me that promotion!" Damien recovered from the hit and swung one of his katana at Ace in an arc. Ace jumped back slightly, causing the blade to miss him by a few inches. "You had to stick your nose into something that had nothing to do with you! All of this could have been avoided Damien! But now…" A stray swing caught Ace by surprise, a shallow cut appearing on his torso.

"I've had enough of you Ace." Damien slowly walked towards the injured Ace, the wound causing him to stumble to the ground. "You've terrorized the good people of what used to be a good town for long enough!" Ace clutched at his wound as he looked up at Damien, holding one of his swords in the air and preparing to bring it down. "Any last words?"

Ace glared at Damien before he smirked, confusing Damien at his change in behavior.

Ace acted quickly, kicking the side of Damien's right leg hard enough to make him gasp in pain and fall to the ground. He quickly grabbed the sword that Damien dropped when he fell and pointed it at the downed teen. "Does that hurt Damien? I hope it does! The tables have turned now!" Cackling in glee, Ace added to Damien's injury by stomping on his knee, causing Damien to grunt in pain as he gritted his teeth. Ace growled in anger as he continued to rapidly kick Damien, wanting to hear him yell in pain. "C'mon! Scream! Yell! Cry! I want to hear you beg me for mercy! I want tears to fall from your eyes as you scream in pain and beg for forgiveness!"

With each kick that Ace drove into his body, Damien grunted in pain, he showed no signs of breaking. He wouldn't give Ace the pleasure of seeing him in pain.

Growing tired of messing with him, Ace stopped kicking Damien and pointed the sword in his hand to Damien's forehead. "Any last words, Damien?" Ace said in a mocking tone, smug grin on his face for all to see."

Damien raised his head to look up into Ace's eyes, causing his eyes to widen at the sight of the fire burning in Damien's eyes. "Yeah, why don't you just shut up!" Using Ace's momentary distraction, Damien smacked the sword to the side, got into a kneeling position with his uninjured knee, and thrust the blade of his second katana into Ace's chest. "Did you forget that I had 2 swords!?" Ace's eyes widened, his mouth open in a silent scream as Damien twisted the blade inside the wound, and pulled it out through Ace's side.

Ace collapsed, his near lifeless eyes blankly looking up at the metallic ceiling. Damien's grim face came into his field of vision and he grunted in pain as he struggled to speak, "I-In my… coat pocket *cough* there's a switch" Ace coughed loudly, specks of blood flying into the air as his organs began to shut down. "It will open… an elevator *cough* that will take you back to the surface. Use it to get out before the place blows." By now the life in Ace's eyes was near non-existent, only will power keeping him alive at the moment. Seeing Damien's questioning look, Ace smirked malevolently, "I realized that if _I _can't kill you, then my father will. I'll go to the grave *cough* knowing that my father will do worse things to you than I ever did!" Giving one last painful chuckle, Ace closed his eyes and died, his familiar smirk forever plastered on the face of his corpse.

Damien stared at the copse of the man he hated the most. There was no question that he had told him the truth, if his father had as much power as he said he did, then he would surely do anything to get revenge for his son's death. Clearing the thoughts out of his head, Damien winced as he shakily stood up, putting most of his weight on his good leg. "I'll take your father down just like I did to you. Burn in hell for all eternity, Ace." Damien looked behind him to see what had become of Ash. His eyes widened and his jaw dropped as he saw the unconscious bodies of the 20 thugs, and a grim faced Ash staring at Ace's corpse.

* * *

(_3 minutes ago- with Ash_)

"_This is so awesome!_" Ash mentally yelled as he seemed to blur from existence and embedded his glowing right fist into a surprised thug, doubling him over and knocking him out from the pain. "_Din, what the hell did you do to me?!_" Ash jumped into the air and spin-kicked a charging thug in the forehead, using his momentum to strike another thug that had been trying to sneak up on the overcharged teenager. "_I feel like I drank 5 cups of coffee and ate 10 pounds of sugar at the same time!_" Ash barreled into the stomach of a thug, the speed in which he had run into him allowing him to effortlessly launch him off his feet and into another thug wielding a gun that had been trying to shoot him down.

Ash could hear Din chuckle slightly in his mind as he continued to beat down the unprepared men. "_Do you remember a conversation that you had with the keeper of your core?_" Specks of blood flew into the air as Ash sent a left hook into a nearby thugs' face. "My core?" Ash asked out loud.

"_When those soldiers back in the viridian forest nearly killed you, the experience caused you to awaken a power within you. I've had some time to learn a bit more about what this power is and I'll tell you what I learned later, but I think the rest is up for you to learn yourself. This is all I can do for you now; I'm streaming small amounts of this energy throughout your body, temporarily boosting your physical capabilities._"

Once Din finished with his explanation, Ash gave a feral grin that sent shivers up the remaining conscious thugs' spine's. "Boosting my physical capabilities, huh?" Clenching his fists tight, Ash charged into the group of thugs as screams of pain sounded throughout the room. "That's all right by me!"

When the last man fell, the blue glow around Ash slowly started to dissipate, its job now done. Ash stared at his hands, remembering the power that coursed through his veins not a moment ago. "Whatever this 'power' that I unlocked is, I'm definitely gonna learn more about it." Grinning in satisfaction, Ash headed over to see how Damien was doing.

Seeing the teenager slowly stagger to his feet over Ace's corpse, Ash shivered slightly in disgust as he stared at the body, unwanted memories showing in the forefront of his mind. Opening his eyes, Ash made eye contact with Damien, both of them staring at each other for a moment before they both gave a tired sigh. The night had certainly been quite taxing for them both.

Reaching into Ace's coat pocket, Damien found the switch that he had revealed to him a minute ago. Pressing the switch, both teens tensed at the sound of an opening door to their left. To their relief, Ace had been true to his word, an elevator that was big enough to hold 4 people available for them to use.

"Let's go, I don't feel like dying in a blazing inferno tonight"

"Ditto"

Without a moment's hesitation, both tired teens walked into the elevator that would mark the end to the hectic day they had experienced. Ace's last words would be burned into Damien's mind, reminding him that the entirety of the ordeal was yet to be over.

* * *

(_Formerly Town of Ace-outskirts-3 hours later_)

It was about 4 am in the morning. Ash and Damien had escaped the hideout-turned-time bomb just in the nick of time; the entire place exploding seconds after the elevator had dropped them off back on the surface. Both of them had shared a laugh at the fact that both of them had narrowly escaped death.

They had found a spot about a mile away from the hideout and had been resting for quite some time now, fatigue and injuries having been ignored for long enough. Damien, while certainly not a doctor, had concluded that his leg wasn't seriously injured. A few days rest would put him back to full health.

Ash had suffered a few more injuries than Damien, cuts and bruises littering his chest and torso, Mostly backlash from charging into close range fighting with weapon wielding thugs. Again, a few days rest would put him back to full health.

Done with resting for the moment, Ash stood up and stretched his joints, grunting slightly at hearing a loud *pop*. "Well, I think I should go now. I think I've overstayed my welcome. I'm gonna have to walk quite a bit to reach another town." Sighing quietly, Ash smiled at Damien and waved goodbye. "Well Damien, it was nice hanging with you, but I think this is where we go our separate ways." A soft chuckle grabbed his attention as Damien stood, walking up to him and punching him in the shoulder.

Seeing Ash's confused look, Damien spoke, "No way. You're not getting rid of me that easily Ash! After what just happened, you expect us to just part ways just like that?" At that, Damien smirked. "Nuh uh, you're not getting rid of me that easily. I'm coming with you and that's that!" Damien left no room for argument as he glared at Ash.

Blinking for a moment, Ash grinned as he nodded his head in confirmation, "Alright, I guess I could use the company." Thinking for a moment, Ash suddenly thought of something. "You know… I don't think we ever properly introduced ourselves on account of all the crap that went on!" Damien came to that realization as well as he shook his head and chuckled.

"Well, at this point I don't really think we need to do that, but whatever floats your boat I guess." Shrugging his shoulder nonchalantly, Damien reached his hand out to Ash for a handshake. "Hello, my name is Damien Grayson. Pleased to meet you.

Grinning, Ash held his hand out as well. "And my name is Ash Ketchum!" He was about to shake Damien's hand when he stopped, looked at his hand, and shook his head.

Looking at him in confusion, Damien watched as Ash seemed to think about something before his eyes suddenly brightened in delight. "Uh… what are you doing?" Damien asked when, instead of shaking his hand, Ash clenched his right hand into a fist and held it out to him.

Ash chuckled as he answered Damien's question, "I think handshakes are a bit overused, I think we should fist bump to seal the deal!" Grinning eagerly, Ash nudged Damien's still outstretched hand with his fist, signaling for him to do the same.

Sighing with a wry smile on his face, Damien complied with Ash's wish as he bumped his left fist with Ash's. "You're a weird kid Ash, you know that?" A sheepish grin and a soft chuckle was all Damien received as an answer as the teenagers began their trek.

It would be a few days before Ace's father would be informed of his demise and his search for his killers would certainly give Ash and his newfound friend trouble in the near future, but for now they wouldn't worry about that, they would cross that bridge when they came to it.

* * *

-Omake: Alernate scene- Bob's fury-

Ash and Damien tensed as they prepared to rush the laughing thugs, but it seemed someone beat them to it when they heard a loud war cry.

"THAT'S IT! I CAN'T STAND YOU ASSHOLES ANY LONGER!"

Ash and Damien peeked around the corner to see what was going on, their eyes widened comically at what they witnessed.

A completely red-faced Bob had punched Seto in the face hard enough to send him to the ground, unconscious. Grabbing the gun at his side, the berserk Bob began shooting wildly as the thugs screamed in fear and began to run away, Bob following and laughing maniacally the whole way.

"YOU WANT TO LAUGH? I'LL GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO LAUGH ABOUT WHEN I SHOVE A BULLET INTO YOUR ASS!"

The fearful thugs and the berserk Bob ran past a wide-eyed Ash and Damien, completely ignoring them as they quickly disappeared around the corner, girly screams and maniacal laughter echoing throughout the metallic hallways.

Ash and Damien remained silent as they left the corner they had been hiding behind, catching sight of the lone, unconscious thug on the ground.

"…"

"…"

"That guy has issues."

Damien couldn't help but agree with Ash as they quickly left the scene of the crime, glad that they had avoided what could have been a very tight situation.

* * *

**Whelp, that's it!** **Another long chapter full of stuff! **

**You like stuff… right?**

**I think I did pretty well for the fight scenes, the later ones will be better I guarantee. **

**Ash and Pikachu had to say goodbye, but it looks like Ash made a new friend, another OC that's going to be very important to Ash's future growth. Ash Experiences a little taste of the power that he's unlocked, but his Aura powers will have to develop over time. It's not something you can just learn to use in an instant.**

**Din (My other OC) will also be important to Ash's growth; he's basically his mentor for the time being. If Ash can't understand something that he learns, Din can put it in a perspective that Ash can more easily understand.**

**The beginning has been a little slow, but (I hope) it's all uphill from here!**

**Sooooooo… Review, favorite, follow; Click those things down there!**

**Stay tuned for the next chapter and have a good Morning/Day/Night!**


	6. Ch 6: The Game Plan

**Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon in any way, shape, or form. But if I did, that would be pretty cool.**

* * *

The Game Plan

It was a quiet night. The Glow of a full moon shining down on a small, rural town, and all was deathly quiet as everyone rested in their homes for the night, taking comfort in the safe haven that they provided.

One such home was not so "safe" on this very night.

A tall, 2 story brick building lay on the outskirts of the town, the dim lighting from inside meant that whoever resided in the building was still awake. Rowdy laughter could be heard coming from the second floor of the building, it seemed as though the building was housed by various people. By the deep laughter permeating the otherwise quiet night, it seemed the residents of the building were all men.

A pair of glaring amber eyes peered at the building through a thick shrub, analyzing every single detail about the building. Every nook and cranny, every bit of graffiti that covered the sides and entrances, and even the strong smell of cheep alcohol wafting through the air into the figures direction, causing the persons nose to wrinkle in disgust as they stepped back to address the three women behind her.

"All right, is everyone ready?" Said the figure, revealed to be a beautiful, curvaceous woman that stood at 5'8 with long, shoulder length brown hair that framed her beautifully fair, pale face; she wore a black skin-tight latex suit that hugged her slender body and accentuated the curves of her hips, the tight suit also helped to draw attention to the beautiful woman's large breasts that jiggled with every smooth step that she took. Her beauty turned the heads of every man that inhabited wherever she went, her sheer beauty even caught the looks of several women, jealous of her good looks or even slightly attracted to the beautiful woman.

"We're ready 'Rura-Chan!" The woman's amber eyes narrowed slightly at the familiar bubbly tone that the young woman spoke to her with. The young woman who spoke to her was known as Ciel, she was a few years younger than her, but she had shown great promise in their practice. She stood at about 5'4, she had platinum blond hair that reached down to her waist, vibrant pink eyes that greatly accentuated the eternal grin that seemed to be forever etched on to her face, and, while not as curvy, she certainly had an impressive figure as opposed to a civilian woman. She wore a black strapless sundress that revealed a bit of her cleavage as well.

"I thought I told you not to call me that."

Ciel's grin seemed to widen even further (if that was even possible) at the beautiful woman's words, "But I like calling you 'Rura-chan' Rura-chan! It's a lot better than calling you Karura, it's shorter too!" A sigh of exasperation caused the two women to look to another woman beside them that was staring at them both with a scowl on her face.

"Just give it up already Karura, You two have had this conversation so many times, that it's not even funny anymore." The young woman said with a slight growl. This young woman was perpetually the "tomboy" of the group. She stood at 5'5, but it was easy to misinterpret her correct height because of the leather jacket she wore that seemed a few sizes too big for her, she never seemed to like showing her admittedly impressive feminine figure because she thought she might look too "girly", her red-streaked black hair was long enough to reach to her shoulders, but she had tied it into a ponytail so her hair length wouldn't hinder her in any way. Her scarlet colored eyes seemed to _always _be glaring at something.

Karura stared at her friend for a second before shaking her head, she turned to continue observing the building as she spoke, "I don't like being referred to with even a _hint _of disrespect Menkozu, you of all people should know that by now." Even though she didn't see it, Karura knew that the tomboy was scowling at her use of her full name.

"My name's not Menkozu! It's Mecha! I told you that I wanted to be called that when I joined your stupid group!"

"Honestly Menkozu, why would you willingly choose to be called such a _garish _name?" A quiet, gentle voice spoke in the night; the sudden input of the fourth woman's gentle voice seemed to startle Ciel slightly, as evidenced by the "eep" sound that she made as she quickly rounded upon the previously quiet woman.

"Anata! You startled me! How long have you been standing there?" The bubbly young woman asked, tilting her head cutely as she stared with an almost childish wonder at the young woman who had chosen that moment to speak.

Staring at Ciel with an almost exasperated look in her eyes, Anata responded with the same quiet, gentle voice that seemed to soothe the soul with its gentle caress, "I have been here the whole time Ciel, it only took you this long to know I was there." Of course she knew that Ciel had known all along that she had been there, she was far too skilled to _not _know she had been there. Her obliviousness was only a mere façade to catch her opponents off guard.

Anata was easily the smallest member of their little group, only standing at about 5'2. But what she lacked in height, she more than made up for in the arts of her profession. Anata wore a beautiful kimono, black as the night sky, tied tightly around the middle by a gray obi. Anata was a fairly beautiful woman; her lightly tanned skin added a certain _exotic _look to her, her pitch black hair was neatly wrapped into a small bun on her head, and two bangs seemed to be always perfectly framing her gentle face. Her onyx eyes seemed to be always observing every single thing around her with an almost calculating gaze, and her ruby lips were almost always set into a small frown.

Cocking her head slightly to the side, Ciel showed off her pearly whites with a large grin as she began to hop on the balls of her feet. "All four of us are here! That means we can get this thing started, Right Rura-chan?"

Karura took a moment, still peering through the thick shrub, before she responded to her friend's question, "Yes, Ciel. We can now get this 'thing' started." Turning to the group of women in front of her with a steely gaze, Karura looked to her comrades to see the same steely gazes in their eyes as well. They were all ready to undergo another training session.

Giving a small nod, Karura gestured for the others to come closer. Once they did so, she began to discuss the plan of action that they would take for the night.

* * *

(_Inside the bandits keep_)

Inside the brick building, twenty-three men stood around in a dreary gray room; the rowdy laughter coming from upstairs irritating them as they looked to the stairs that lead to the second floor in envy. While they were stuck down there, guarding the front door in case of an unlikely attack, the others were upstairs, getting drunk on cheep booze, and telling greatly exaggerated stories of the towns that they had looted or victims that they had robbed. None of them thought it was fair that they had to stay down here, doing absolutely nothing, while the others got to enjoy the fruits of their labor.

A knock at the door brought one of the guard out of his thoughts. He stared at the door for a few seconds, confused at the fact that someone had actually found this place. He shared a look with his equally confused partner as he too wondered who would be all the way out here this late at night.

"… Well? Aren't you gonna get it?" His partner asked, his rough and raspy voice tinged with confusion as he stared at the door.

"Why don't you get it?" He glared at his partner. Why should he get it? His partner was closer to the door!

Scowling at his younger partner, the guard gestured to himself with his thumb, "I'm your superior. That means that you have to do whatever I say!" His younger partner scowled at him as the older guard pulled out a rusty dagger from a strap on his waist. "Now go get it! If we're lucky, it might be some poor sucker that got lost in the woods that we can loot."

"Why don't I let myself in, gentlemen." All eyes in the room focused on the beautiful woman that was standing at the foot of the door, hand on her hip and a wry smirk on her lips as she stared at the men in the room with a twinkle in her eyes. "I was wondering if you could help us with something" A devious smirk came to her face as she got her desired reaction from the men, who now sported lecherous grins as they stared at her with rapt attention. She could practically _smell_ the lust oozing from them.

One of the guards walked up to her, all the while eyeing her from top to bottom, noticeably keeping his eyes on a certain part of her chest longer. "Sure thing hot stuff, what can _we_ do for _you_?"

Smirking devilishly, Karura spoke in tone that left no room for argument, "I was wondering, if you could… give us every single valuable item you have on you, and it'd be most appreciated if you all surrendered immediately."

Karura's words seemed to shock the guards, looking at her as if she were insane before they all burst into laughter.

Karura remained silent all the while, the devilish smirk never leaving her as she caught the tiniest bit of movement in her peripherals. The smirk on her face widened slightly as she caught sight of three shadows moving about the room, never being noticed by the laughing guards.

The guard that had approached her finished laughing, wiping the tears of amusement from his eyes as he stared at Karura with an arrogant grin on his face, "That's funny, girly. I, along with the rest of my fellow men, are going to have to respectfully decline your request." His eyes roamed to Karura's breasts, his arrogant grin became lecherous. "However… I do believe you can help us out. You see, it gets boring down here with nothing to do. Maybe you could provide us with some… entertainment?" All the other men in the room sported lecherous grins as well. While the guys upstairs were busy getting drunk off their asses, they'd be getting some easy (at least in their opinion), hot piece of ass.

Sporting a disgusted frown, Karura glared at the man in front of her. "I'm going to have to decline your 'request', but…" At a subtle gesture of hers, the man in front of her jerked forward slightly, his eyes widened in shock and his mouth opened in a silent scream of pain before his eyes rolled into the back of his head while his body collapsed to the floor.

Widened eyes stared at the corpse of their comrade, then to the young woman who had been behind him the whole time without their noticing.

Anata wiped the blood off the sleek, silver metal of her assasin's blade on the shirt of the man she had just killed, gazing at the rest of the shocked guards with a steely gaze, "You _disgusting_ men should know better than to think of mistress Karura as a common _whore_." At her words, two more figures emerged from the shadows and stood beside Karura while glaring at the guards.

The guards recovered from their stupor, glaring at the four women after a few seconds as they realized what had happened.

While Karura had distracted the guards with her sudden intrusion and her beautiful looks, Ciel, Menkozu, and Anata had snuck in to the building through the windows to the side. Distracted by Karura's beauty, none of the guards had ever noticed the extra arrivals, which made it all the easier for them to sneak inside. Without them ever being the wiser. None of them had noticed that they had also quietly taken out a few of the other guards farther back in the room.

Growling in anger, one of the guards took out a sharp sword from a strap at his side and charged at the women, yelling in rage at the death of his comrades. "You'll pay for this, bitches!" Such a rookie mistake would bring about his downfall.

Brandishing a big, metallic spiked club, Menkozu stepped forward with an eager scowl on her face. Easily blocking the man's sloppy swing of his sword, Menkozu swung the club with great strength at the man's face, the force of the swing breaking the man's neck with an audible *crack*. He died instantly.

Expertly twirling the club in her right hand, Menkozu scowled down at her victims' corpse, her eyes flashing dangerously. "Who's the bitch now?" She chuckled slightly, making the angry guards even angrier as they all brandished their weapons in preparation for a fight. Menkozu scoffed at the guards' futile attempts to intimidate them, she scowled at them with a menacing gleam in her eyes, "Who's the next dead fucker who wants to mess with us!?"

"Menzy! You shouldn't use such bad words! Act like a big girl!" Ciel admonished Menkozu, grinning widely as she directed her scowl at the bubbly blonde. "Turn that scowl upside-down, Menzy! You don't want your face to freeze that way do you?" She tilted her head slightly with an innocently cute pout on her face, her vibrant pink orbs shining with mirth.

"Shut the fuck up Ciel!"

One of the guards growled in anger at the sight of the intruding females ignoring them. "If you think we're going to let you get off Scott-free after killing two of our comrades, you're sadly mistaken!" Raising his sword into the air, the guard let out a war cry as he charged. "Come on men! We can take these heifers!"

At the man's yell, the rest of the guards followed suit. Raising their swords in the air, all of the men charged at the four women, assured of their victory.

There were only four of them, and twenty-one of them! They were surrounded. What could possibly go wrong?

They found out pretty quickly.

Karura crouched down and leaped right over the charging men with an unfathomable grace, twisting her body perfectly in mid-air for a perfect landing on the other side of the room. The guards paid her no mind, simply charging towards the remaining woman who each got into their respective battle stances.

Anata swiftly moved through the group of charging men, her hands a mere silver blur as she sliced through a few unlucky men with her twin assassin blades. She didn't stay among them for long however, she quickly stepped to the side to make room for a charging Menkozu, who quickly cleared a path for Anata to meld into the shadows of the room, the dim lighting of the room providing plenty of shadows for her to hide in. She was more attuned to striking at unaware opponents from the shadows than fighting with them head-on.

Menkozu swung her spiked club efficiently, years of practice with it had made her almost an expert at wielding the heavy, spiked weapon. An excited scowl adorned her lips as specks of blood flew through the air as she swung her club into the sides, chin, head, and even the backs of every guard that tried to intercept her path of carnage. "Come on ya' fuckin' pansies, fight like the stupid men that you are!"

While Anata lingered in the shadows to pick off any unfortunate idiots that wandered to close to her cover, and Menkozu eagerly swung her instrument of death among a crowd of nervous guards, A few guards managed to make their way to Ciel, who was still standing at the building's entrance, a bright grin on her face as her vibrant pink orbs followed their every movement with rapt attention.

Smirking arrogantly, one of the guards pointed his sword at Ciel with an air of triumph around him. "Give up, ya little bitch. Your friends aren't gonna help you against us!" Hidden in the shadows, Anata shook her head at the man's foolishness. "_That dumb bastard already sealed his fate the moment Ciel saw him_."

Tilting her head slightly, Ciel's grin grew to enormous proportions as her pink eyes seemed to flash as she stared at the arrogant man intently. "What makes you think I need their help?" None of the men had noticed that Ciel had her hands behind her back the entire time they interacted.

The guards surrounding the two laughed for a moment at the seemingly defenseless young woman's response, the guard pointing his sword at her smirked wickedly as he raised the sword above his head and prepared to bring it down on Ciel. "It's over for you girly!"

The man's eyes widened in shock as, before he could bring his sword down on Ciel, the bubbly blond seemed to disappear for a split second. The shock in his eyes turned to pain as he quickly found that an excruciating pain began to emanate from his chest.

Looking down, the man was horrified to see that Ciel had embedded her left fist _into _his chest!

Ciel's head was bowed to the floor as she shoved her left fist into the man's chest, her blond hair casting an ominous shadow over her vicious pink eyes. Her previously happy grin had turned into an insane grin as she felt the warm trickle of blood flow from her hand.

Pulling her fist roughly out of the man's chest, the man laid eyes on what had effortlessly pierced through his flesh. Ciel wore a pair of bronze knuckle dusters on her hands and, dripping in the man's crimson life fluid, were three sharp, curved blades that were attached to the bronze plating of the knuckle dusters.

The injured man looked into Ciel's eyes as she raised her head to look at her victim.

The man nearly screamed in horror as he stared into Ciel's glowing, manic eyes. Her pink irises stared into the man's eyes with great intensity, her insane grin added to the horrifying visage as she raised her weapon of choice to eye level. "You like my little toys? They're _really _sharp, and I like to coat them with a fresh coat of poison whenever I go out." The man's eyes widened as he took a closer look at the blades of the insane woman's knuckle dusters, a dark green liquid trickled off of the blades and mixed with his blood. His eyes widened even further as the previously sharp pain in his chest became unbearable, he clutched his chest tightly. He screamed in pain as he collapsed to the floor in agony, the wound on his chest began to sizzle and visibly bubble with a disgusting green liquid.

The other men stared in horrified fascination at their comrades' excruciatingly slow and painful demise. Their terrified eyes locked onto to Ciel's approaching form, absolutely _trembling _in fear as she peered at them through the space in between the blades of her knuckle dusters.

Glowing, manic pink eyes stared at the terrified men as she raised her fists to eye level, she giggled in glee as the men flinched backwards in fright at her slightest gesture.

"I think it's time to… **PLAY!**"

From her position, Karura stared at the progress that her female comrades were making in wiping out these pathetic men, smiling slightly at the sight of Ciel letting out her true nature on the unfortunate guards. She almost felt sorry for them. Almost.

After a few minutes, the three women regrouped with their leader after having beaten the guards in the room to their hearts content. Menkozu hung her precious club over her shoulder as she wiped her face of the blood of her victims, Anata was carefully wiping the blood off of the silver metal of her assassin blades, and Ciel was back to her grinning, bubbly self. All traces of her previously vicious demeanor all but gone along with her bladed knuckle dusters.

Before anything could be said between them, the sound of rapidly approaching footsteps caused all of the females' eyes to turn to the stairs that lead to the second floor. It seemed that reinforcements had arrived.

A short, pudgy man stomped down the stairs while accompanied by ten battle ready guards. "What the hell is going on down here!?" He yelled as he stared at the carnage left behind by the group of women. "What the hell are you doing here? Did you four cause this!?" His eyes widened in rage as he stared at the four women that seemed to pay him, and his guards, no mind. "I asked you a question, dammit!"

Gesturing for her comrades to stand down, Karura put her hands on her hip with a smirk on her face as she stared at the puny man before her. "Don't be fools like the rest of your men were; surrender all of the items that you have on you and everything that you have stolen. If you comply, we may spare your pathetic lives.

Growling in anger, the pudgy man turned to the men behind him while gesturing to the women with his thumb, "Kill them! These idiotic bitches think that they can mess with me!? Teach them a lesson they'll never forget!" The men roared as they rushed at Karura, the pudgy man smirked at the three women behind her to see what they would do about futility trying to defend their comrade.

To his surprise, the three women seemed to smirk in triumph at the sight of the men charging at Karura. Why were they smirking? Was there something about that woman that he didn't know?

He got his answer when, with a flick of her wrist and a flash of silver, the group of charging men suddenly stopped… before they all violently exploded in a giant wave of gore. Limbs and organs flew through the air as the room was showered in blood, painting the previously bare walls a dark crimson color. A severed head landed directly in front of the pudgy man as he stared in horror at how easily this one woman had killed-no- _destroyed _his men in a matter of seconds.

Karura's approaching form snapped the pudgy man out of his horrified trance; he stared at her blank face as her amber eyes seemed to be peering into his very soul, as if judging him and everything he had ever done.

Karura stared down at the pudgy man, her amber eyes never leaving him as his frightened orbs stared at her like she was the devil himself. "If you'll kindly reveal the whereabouts of your loot, I'll think about sparing your pathetic life." She said in a sickly sweet tone that sent shivers up the spines of everyone (that wasn't dead) in the room.

"U-Upstairs… b-behind the yellow cloth… that's where all our stuff is hidden." He barely kept himself from stuttering as he spoke, Karura's intimidating gaze never wavering as she stared at him. "P-Please… let me go… I-!" Karura placing a hand on his forehead silenced the cowering man; he stared up at Karura as she smiled slightly.

"Thank you for that, it makes it easier for us to get the loot without having to look for it. I thought about it, and…" For a moment, the man had hope that he would escape with his life. "I don't think you deserve to live." He was dead before he knew it, a long spike sprouted from the palm of her hand that she had rested on his forehead, piercing the man's skull and penetrating his brain, killing him instantly.

Karura turned around to address her comrades as the man's corpse collapsed to the floor, "Alright girls, you heard him; upstairs and behind the yellow cloth. Let's take what we came for and leave before the sun rises. I think we can consider this training session a success."

Ciel cheered loudly as she eagerly bounced around the room, paying no mind to the overwhelming gore. "Yay! We won the game!" Ciel's cheerfulness was slightly infectious as Menkozu (somehow) scowled happily, and Anata gave a small smile at a job well done.

Nodding her head slightly, Karura made her way upstairs with her female comrades by her side. This night had merely been a practice for them, one that they would repeat many times in order to keep their skills sharp.

These four women were truly a dangerous bunch. Kami rest the souls of whoever would be unfortunate enough to meet them in combat one day.

* * *

(_Kanto Outpost_)

It had been a few days since Ash and Damien had left their previous dwelling, having liberated it from the clutches of Ace and his goons. They had traveled for quite some time before stumbling upon one of the kanto regions' outposts; civilization and a chance to have a good night's rest had been a greatly welcome prospect to the two exhausted teens.

Upon entering the settlement, they had immediately gotten a room in the nearest inn, barely making it to their respective beds before collapsing into blissful unconsciousness.

That had been about two days ago.

The two teens had little to no chance to rest on the trip to get there, constantly having to move on in order to avoid any sort of law enforcement that had seen the explosion off in the distance.

It had angered Damien that it took law enforcement that long to even _think _of doing any sort of investigating back home. He highly suspected that Ace had been bribing them to keep quiet about his actions. Ash had been a bit skeptical, but he had nonetheless agreed that it was weird that they only chose to take action after Ace had already been eliminated.

To pass the time, Ash and Damien had decided to get to know each other a little, telling each other something about themselves and, most importantly, they both asked each other as to how they had ended up where they did.

* * *

***Flashback***

"_So, what's the story with you and Ace?"_

_Resting in small forest clearing, Ash and Damien took the opportunity to swap stories in order to pass the time. A small camp fire lay in the center of the clearing as they sat on a couple of wooden stumps._

_Damien stared at the ground for a moment, contemplating whether or not he should tell him. He shook his head, took a deep breath, and spoke. "A few years ago, when I was settling into my new home, I accidently stumbled upon one of Ace's 'dealings' with a crime boss from another city. Needless to say, he wasn't happy to have to see me at the time." Damien bowed his head as dark memories began to play through his mind. "He made his displeasure clear when he started to focus on terrorizing me instead of the town's people. I would have been fine with that if it hadn't been for one thing."_

"_What was it?"_

_Damien clenched his fist as he glared at the forest floor, tears in the corners of his eyes as he spoke, "Ace decided that just making _my _life miserable wasn't enough to get him off, oh no, the sick fucker decided that he was going to make the lives of anyone that was ever close to me miserable. He raised the taxes on my grandmothers shop, just to spite me."_

"_That was your grandma's shop?"_

_Damien nodded his head with tears in his eyes, the dark memories turned sad. "Because of Ace, the few friends that I made in that place… left me. They just left me. They were afraid of what Ace would do to them when he wasn't against ripping off an old woman just for the sake of making me miserable." Damien quickly wiped the tears from his eyes as he continued to speak, this time in a more subdued voice, "That's why, when my grandmother died, I promised her on her grave that I would take care of her shop, just like she took care of me." Looking at Ash, Damien sent a sad smile his way as he saw Ash gaze sadly at him. "That's why, Ash… that's why I was willing to die to get my revenge on Ace. That shop meant so much to my grandma, more so than me, and seeing it being destroyed just… burned me up inside. I feel like I failed her." Damien bowed his head once more as tears fell from his eyes._

_Ash could slightly relate to Damien's plight, His parent's house being destroyed had left him saddened as well. Another question, one he wasn't sure he should ask, came to the front of his mind. "What about your… parents?" Even thinking about that word sent a sharp stab of pain into his heart. Some things were harder to let go than others, it seemed._

_Damien shook his head slightly at Ash's question, his slightly teary eyes focusing on Ash once more. "My parents? They've been dead for quite a long time now. It was the reason why I was living with my grandmother."Damien furiously wiped the tears from his eyes as he tried to regain his composure. "Enough about me, what's your story? Why are you out here all by yourself?" He asked in the hopes of changing the subject, staring at Ash with his slightly bloodshot eyes as he wiped the tears on his cheeks with the sleeves of his shirt._

_Startled slightly at his question, Ash hesitated slightly as he thought about whether he should tell him the truth or not. Taking a moment to think about it, Ash shook his head slightly and focused on Damien as he spoke. "Well, I'm out here because… my dad was kinda an adventurer when he was younger, so, when I grew up, he encouraged me to wander about the lands just like he did so many years ago. To see how the regions have changed in the times that have passed."_

"_I can't imagine that your mother really agreed to that." _

_Chuckling slightly, Ash shook his head at the thought of what his mother might have actually done if she were to know that he had traveled so far from home unsupervised. "No, she hated the idea of me going out and exploring lands that I have no idea what they hold." Damien chuckled at that as well, the previously somber mood having lightened up slightly. "It took my dad a lot of convincing but, when I finally became old enough, she reluctantly accepted that I wanted to experience what my dad had experienced." _

"_Must have been pretty hard for her to let you go out on your own."_

_Ash chuckled at Damien's words, a small grin adorning his lips as he looked at the amused face of his friend. "It was, she held me tight, like her life depended on it. My dad had to pry her off of me so that I could finally leave."_

_Damien thought of something that Ash had left out, "But that doesn't explain the injuries you had on your body when I first met you." Ash stiffened slightly at that, how did he forget about those? "A few of them looked pretty bad too, where'd you get them?"_

_Thinking for a moment, Ash decided to at least tell part of the truth. "Well, part of the reason why my mom was so reluctant to let me go off on my own is because the place where I live is surrounded by a giant forest, full of man eating wild animals that would love to make me their lunch." Ash scratched the back of his head slightly, grinning sheepishly at Damien's deadpanned expression. "Yeah, you guessed it. I kinda ran into some trouble with the locals on my way out of the forest, but I did manage to get out in the end. That's all that counts!"_

_Staring at Ash with a deadpanned look, all previous sadness on his face was gone as he spoke. "You are a really weird kid, Ash." Shaking his head slightly, Damien sat up from the stump he was sitting on and began looking around. "I think it's safe to keep going now, doesn't look like anyone's out there at the moment." Damien quickly put out the camp fire with some dirt as he and Ash prepared to set out once more. _

***Flashback End***

* * *

That had been the end of that conversation; they felt like they learned a little more about each other after that. Even though Ash did feel guilty for having lied to Damien, he felt it wasn't the appropriate time to tell Damien what _really _got him to leave his home.

Another noteworthy conversation that he had was one that he had with Din, they hadn't really spoken that much to each other since back in Ace's hideout, though he did remind Ash that they would have to talk about the mysterious power that he had.

About a day after the conversation with Damien, Ash had been pulled into his mindscape by Din after they had fallen asleep for the night.

* * *

***Flashback***

_Startled at suddenly being jostled from his sleep, Ash stood up and stared at the slightly familiar buildings that he had seen when was unconscious in the viridian forest._

_Confused as to why he was here again, Ash wandered about once more as he called out for the sole resident of his mindscape, "Din! Where the hell are ya? I was having a nice dream before I got here!" The sound of someone clearing their throat quickly caught Ash off guard. He spun around quickly, prepared to defend himself, before he sighed in relief when he saw the cloaked figure that was Din. "Oh, Din. It's just you. You shouldn't sneak up on me like that! You almost gave me a heart attack!" _

_Din sighed, shaking his head somewhat in exasperation. "This is the second time you've been startled by my presence, stop being a baby. You'll get used to it." Conjuring up a chair behind him, Din sat down as he stared at Ash with serious eyes, the only part of Din that Ash could see. "We have some stuff to talk about."_

_Balking in amazement, Ash pointed a shaky finger at Din as he stared in amazement at Din's feat. "H-How did you do that!" Getting on his knees, Ash began to inspect the chair that Din was sitting on, poking it slightly and gasping in amazement as he heard a solid *clink* sound of wood being poked. "You just made that chair come out of nowhere!" Standing fully erect in a split second, Ash pointed at Din's hooded face as he yelled. "That's so cool! Teach me how to do that!"_

_Tilting his head to the side, Din sighed at the fact that things had quickly gone off track. "It's not hard to do this, Ash. This is _you're _mindscape after all. In here, you can pretty much do… just about anything. You have full rein here, and since I live here, so do I." Din stared at Ash as he quickly grew excited at the possibilities of what he could do in his mindscape. He crushed those thoughts as he reminded Ash of why he was here. "Make a chair and sit down Ash. I was going to tell you what I managed to learn about your powers, remember?"_

_Quickly reining in his excitement, Ash nodded as he quickly grew serious. Picturing a chair being placed right behind him, Ash was only slightly surprised to find that his rear-end met wood of the first chair he ever created. "Alright, let's talk"._

***Flashback End***

* * *

Aside from being told that while he was in his mindscape he was technically a god, Ash did learn a few things from the conversation he had with Din.

He had learned that his power was named "Aura". When he questioned Din as to how he came about that knowledge, Din told him that he had heard a slight whisper in his ear at one time, the mysterious voice only muttered the word "Aura" a few times before it vanished. He'd had no idea where the voice came from, but it seemed that the name seemed to fit, seeing as the strange blue energy seemed to flow from within his very being. That pretty much made the official name of his powers "Aura". It _was _a good name, but he felt he could have come up with a better one.

Another thing that he learned about his powers was that it was pretty difficult to summon it. Whenever he tried to summon the energy, it took quite a bit of effort to get it to come out, and after a few tries, he quickly found himself becoming tired from the effort. He surmised that, if he knew what the energy felt like, he would be able to summon it to the forefront, but he did remember what it felt like when he had used it back at the hideout; but even that seemed to make no difference in the outcome. Din told him that his powers were probably linked to his emotional state and, once he thought about it, he did find some grain of truth in what he said, he had been aggravated back at the hideout when Din had summoned his Aura and distributed it throughout his body. Figuring it would take some time to properly learn how to use his powers, Ash and Din had moved on for the moment; but did remind themselves that they would get back to practicing soon.

The last thing that Ash had learned about his powers was that, while he couldn't summon his energy _out _of his body, he could move it throughout the inside of his body. He could stream the energy into his limbs to boost his strength slightly like Din did before, but it took a considerable amount of effort to send it into one limb, let alone all four. He had asked if Din could do it for him, but that idea was shot down quickly. "_I can't do everything for you_, _you're going to have to learn how to do this yourself. It wouldn't do to have to rely on me for everything you need, eh Ash?_" He had said. And regrettably, he did have a point in that regard; so he promised to himself (and Din) that he would practice that for awhile, they both agreed it could come in handy for him in the future.

Moving on from past events, after they had gotten settled into their temporary dwelling and had gotten plenty of rest, Ash and Damien set out to procure items that would be very important to have on their person if they were going to move any further than there. They had no food, no water, no spare clothes or any protective gear, or any equipment that could keep them from death.

The two teens quickly sought to fix that problem as they stepped into a large shop a few minute's walk from the inn they were staying in.

Ash and Damien looked around at their surroundings, marveling slightly at all of the items that this place had to sell. "I've never seen so many varied items in one place, and I worked in a restaurant for four years!" Damien looked at all of the things around him in amazement, people moving this way and that in order to get what they wanted.

All Ash could do was nod in response. He had never in his life seen a place so big, nothing that pallet had would ever compare to this place. The raven haired teen was reduced to muttering incoherently as he stared at everything around him, leaving nothing to the imagination.

Damien snapping his fingers in his face awoke Ash from his awe induced trance, looking to the teen beside him in confusion.

"Give me some of your money."

Ash blinked, confused at what Damien had said for a second before he quickly grew irritated at him, clutching his left pants pocket tightly, "Why should I? It's my money, use your own."

Damien grew irritated as well as he poked Ash in the chest, glaring at him as he spoke, "In case you haven't noticed, I don't have any money! It was all burned down along with my house by a freakin crime boss!" Damien smirked in triumph as Ash quickly looked away in embarrassment at having forgotten about that fact. "And besides, you still owe for the room you rented, the clothes I lent you, and the ridiculous amounts of ramen that you consumed on that day." Ash's face lit up with a crimson blush as he scowled in resignation. "Just give me half of what you have, and we'll call it even."

Muttering under his breath about "stupid greedy swordsmen", Ash pulled out his wallet, grabbed a few ryo notes and handed them to Damien. "There, You happy?"

"Very." Counting the notes in his grasp with a small grin on his face, Damien pocketed the ryo notes and addressed the irritated teen. "Alright, here's how this is gonna work. We'll split up, buy our shit, and meet up back here. Capisce?"

Pocketing his emptier wallet, Ash nodded in confirmation. "Yeah yeah, I got it." Before splitting up however, Ash addressed Damien once more as he glared at him slightly. "You better not run off, 'cause if you do. I'll find you, and I'll beat the crap outta you." Ash raised his right fist at eye level to accentuate his threat. He didn't rule out the possibility that Damien could potentially run off with his money and leave him here. They may be friends, but trust was still something that had to be built up, and Damien was still someone he barely knew. It wouldn't be the first time someone had betrayed him.

Waving his hands in a placating manner, Damien smiled slightly in understanding. Being cautious was good, but he had no such intentions. "Don't worry, I'm not gonna run off on you, Ash. You may be weird, but I sorta like you."

Blinking slightly, Ash quickly responded with a mischievous grin on his face. "Sorry Damien, but I don't swing that way." Chuckling slightly, Ash walked off to buy his required "necessities", leaving a flustered teen in his wake.

Eye twitching, Damien turned to walk off in his own direction, shaking his head at the fact that his own words had been used against him.

* * *

(_Kanto Outpost-one hour later_)

About an hour after they had arrived at the store, Ash had managed to acquire the necessary gear (with some help from Din) that he would need for further traveling. What he had told Damien about his father may have been a lie, but Ash's desire to wander the lands beyond his former home was not.

Back in pallet, when Ash was having a particularly boring day, he would spend most of his spare time at the library. The viridian forest may have been a mostly secluded place; but minute amounts of knowledge about the outside world were still available for those who sought it. While there, Ash had read about grand buildings made of steel and concrete called "Skyscrapers", small motored vehicles called "motorcycles" that allowed you to travel freely among the land in the blink of an eye, and the many diverse cultures, full of equally diverse people, scattered throughout the kanto region. The world that he had known for so long was so small compared to what lay beyond, the kanto region was only a small part of the world that he knew, so much left to the unknown, so much left to explore!

Many a night did Ash dream of traveling throughout those mysterious lands, learning and doing new things that other people could only dream of accomplishing. Unfortunately, he realized back then, he was only a child back then, merely an insignificant speck in the giant world that all humans called home; Circumstances had prevented Ash from leaving his proverbial prison back in pallet. Now however, he had the opportunity to do so. No one was there to hold him back and tell him he would amount to nothing, no one to tell him that he would never be as great as many others aspired to be. Just barely a week ago, he had helped in taking down a crime boss, along with his entire band of goons. Ash had confidence that he could handle what came his way if he were to keep going; he would make those "childish" dreams of his a reality.

The sound of Damien snapping his fingers in his face snapped Ash out of his thoughts. Staring at his pale faced friend, Ash inspected the various bags that he was holding with a critical eye. "You got everything you need? 'cause I'm ready to go now. This place is starting to get crowded." Looking around, the store was indeed starting to fill out with more people, the afternoon rush urging people to buy their necessities before it was too late. "Nice cloak."

Damien nodded his head as he reached for something in his recently bought cloak, the silky black linen soft to the touch. "Yeah, I bought everything that we would need for possible emergencies: Food, water, clothes, extra clothes, three first-aid kits, and a box of flint that was on sale. What about you?" Taking out a brown packet out of a pocket hidden in his cloak, Damien took out a certain white cylinder out of the many inside the box. He put it in between his lips as he pocketed the box and reached for something in his pants pocket.

Gawking slightly, Ash stared at the rolled up cylinder in between Damien's lips in shock while pointing a shaky finger at him. "You… smoke!? When the hell were you going to mention that you smoked?! Never mind that, aren't you too young to be smoking?!" All he got in response was a blank stare from Damien, having fished out the item that he was looking for, revealing it to be a black steel lighter held in his hand.

Opening the small metal top of the lighter, Damien held the lighters wick to the tip of his cigarette and began to flick the small thumbwheel to get it started. A small yellow flame appeared on the wick, immediately lighting up the tip of the cigarette.

Damien took a deep puff of the addictive nicotine, his demeanor instantly relaxing as he exhaled a small cloud of smoke into the air. "God, I've been without a smoke for almost a week now! You know how hard it is for a guy to go a week without a smoke? It's not easy, I'll tell you that." Damien's eyes drooped slightly as he held the cancer stick in between his index and middle finger. "I wasn't really gonna mention my little habit until you found it out yourself."

Luckily for the both of them, they had left the shop a few minutes ago and were now carrying their supplies back to the inn they were staying at. Ash waved the air in front of him in disgust as he fanned the smoke out of his face. "You know that stuff can kill you, right? How'd you even get your hands on them anyway? Isn't it against the law to sell cigarettes to minors, or something?"

Damien scoffed slightly at Ash's words, taking another drag from his cigarette as he spoke. "What _won't _kill you these days. To answer your second question, all it took was a little extra money to get my hands on these baby's, and they're not cheap either! These things normally cost about 300 ryo a pack! I had to pay double for the guy to sell it to me."

"May I ask _why_ you're smoking?"

Damien looked at Ash for a moment before nodding slightly, shifting the cigarette in his hand slightly to get a better hold on his bags. "Yeah, you can ask. Smoking helps me relax, believe it or not. If I go some time without smoking, I tend to get easily irritated, and I haven't had a smoke since Ace ruined everything." Now that Ash thought about it, he did seem to look more relaxed and laid back than he did before. His posture wasn't as stiff anymore and he wasn't constantly on guard like he was before.

Another question came to Ash's mind, something a bit more trivial. "And the lighter? Where'd you get the lighter?" Ash saw Damien smile slightly as he pulled the black steel lighter out of his pocket, inspecting it with great care as he showed it to Ash.

"This, Ash, is my lucky lighter!"

Blinking owlishly, Ash stared at Damien blankly as his friend stared at the steel contraption fondly. "Your… lucky lighter? What makes it lucky? Just looks like a regular old lighter to me." He may not have smoked before, but plenty of men back in pallet had. None of those men seemed to treasure their lighters like Damien did.

Damien seemed to get slightly offended at that, glaring at Ash slightly through his drooped eyes. "You wouldn't understand. Me and my lucky lighter have a history! It's helped me out of a lot of shit in the past!" Taking another puff of his cancer stick to calm down, Damien spoke once more, this time more quietly, while clutching his lucky lighter. "Plus, it still works after all these years, even though it ran out of fuel ages ago! I should know, I checked."

"Well, that's… weird."

Damien nodded slightly as he pocketed his lighter, stopping slightly to adjust his grip on his bags. "Yes, yes it is weird; but it's also really awesome. I never have to refill it, it always lights up no matter what!"

Shaking his head and sighing in resignation, Ash gave Damien a skeptical glance as he waited for his friend. "Whatever, as long as you don't blow that stuff into my face, then I'm good." If smoking helped Damien to relax, then who was he to judge.

Taking the time to check something that had been nagging him for a while, Ash pulled his wallet out of his pocket. Opening it, he peered inside and counted the remaining notes inside. The result caused him to wince slightly, which caught Damien's attention as he looked over his shoulder.

"What's wrong?"

Pocketing his wallet with a sheepish grin, Ash nervously scratched the back of his head as Damien stared at him in confusion. "Well, we're kinda, sorta, maybe… short on cash." Ash sighed slightly as he patted his wallet to make sure it was secure. "Our little shopping spree _really _drained our funds. We're gonna run out of money if we don't get a job or something."

Damien looked up in contemplation, wincing slightly at the thought of getting a job. "That's certainly something to be worried about. I really don't think getting a job would be the best option right now, considering the fact that we don't really plan to stay here that long." Both Ash and Damien agreed that getting a job at the moment was not the best idea.

"Well, we have to do something. Money isn't just gonna fall from the sky! It's either get a job or go broke."

"Maybe not."

Looking at Damien in confusion, Ash saw that he had stopped and was staring at something on a nearby wall. Stepping to his side, Ash saw what Damien was staring at as his eyes widened at the prospect of what Damien was suggesting.

On the wall lay a poster, but not just any poster. It was a _bounty _poster.

"Wanted dead or alive: Alfred 'Black Arms' Reed. Reward: 20,000 ryo." Ash read the contents of the poster out loud, Damien nodding beside him with a small grin on his face.

Looking at his raven haired friend, Damien's eyes glinted somewhat in mischief as he spoke in a quiet tone. "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I don't know, are you thinking about food? 'cause I'm hungry."

Damien palmed his face and groaned slightly, he began to walk ahead with a strange haste in his step. "Let's go! We'll put our stuff in our room, and then we're going to do some searching."

"Oi! Wait up!"

* * *

(_Kanto Outpost- a few hours later_)

It had been a few hours since Ash and Damien had done their shopping, dropping off their supplies in their room back at the inn. Damien had explained to Ash what he had thought about when he saw that poster.

"You want us to become bounty hunters?"

"Yeah, but first we have to find the bounty office in order to register for a license."

After some thought, Ash did see how becoming bounty hunters could benefit them. They could travel around freely, they wouldn't have to worry about their financial problems that much, and it did hold some sort of thrill at being able to fight and turn in criminals.

The problem was, they had to find the bounty office in order to register, and very few people knew the whereabouts to the one stationed at their current location, and even fewer people were willing to divulge that information to a couple of teenagers.

Looking for it themselves would take them to long and asking around had gotten the two teens various amounts of weird looks, but, after an hour of pestering citizens, they finally got someone to tell them where it was. They had immediately set out to follow the directions they had been given, leading them into a heavily secluded forest area that was covered in a thin blanket of darkness from the overbearing canopy.

The two had gotten lost for a few hours, the vague directions they had been given didn't _exactly _tell them where to find this place. Whoever ran the whole bounty hunter business _really _wanted to make it hard to find the offices. Understandable really, since just about anyone could stumble upon the place if it wasn't properly hidden.

Finally, after what seemed like forever, the two tired teens stumbled upon what they supposed was the bounty office. If it was, then it certainly needed some renovations.

A run down white wooden shack greeted the eyes of the two teens. The paint was severely worn out, some of the boards on the side were missing and a lot of them were broken, the roof seemed to be ready to come off at a moment's notice, and visible yellow and green puddles and stains could be seen splattered along the sides. All in all, the place looked like a dump.

"I-is that the place?"

Damien stared at the run down building for the longest time, judging whether or not they should go inside to see if this was truly the place they had been looking for. After about a minute, Damien shook his head and sighed, beginning to walk forward to Ash's slight surprise. "Don't know, but might as well find out."

Nodding, Ash followed behind Damien at a subdued pace, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the putrid smell that emanated from the shack.

Opening the rickety door, Ash and Damien peered inside the building, only to see a seemingly endless flight of stairs that went underground.

Ash and Damien looked at each other for a second, silently confirming each other's thoughts.

This was the place.

Quickly but cautiously making their way down the long flight of stairs, Ash and Damien stared down into the darkness below with serious expressions on their faces; they were ready for whatever awaited them down there.

After what seemed like hours, the two teens finally reached the bottom and the two observed what this place had to offer.

"Yes, how can I help you?" Said a young silver haired woman behind a desk with a cash register laid on top, she stared at the two teens with a bored look on her face.

They certainly weren't expecting a room bare of anything except a desk, which said woman was occupying. There was absolutely _nothing _in the room. The walls were painted black, there was a door behind the desk that the woman was sitting behind that probably led to a back room or something, there was a strange odor in the air that made the two teens uncomfortable, and, since there was no AC, it was hot as hell down here!

Clearing his throat, Damien stepped forward and addressed the silver haired woman, "Uh, yes. I-Is this where we can get our bounty hunter licenses?" Damien mentally cursed himself for stuttering, but the woman's piercing stare was very intimidating to the sight. "Me and my friend here are interested in becoming bounty hunters, so it would be really appreciated if you didn't tell us that it's somewhere else.

The silver haired woman stared at Damien for a long while before turning her piercing stare at Ash, who cringed slightly at the sight of her onyx orbs, feeling as if they were staring into his soul, silently judging him.

Looking between the two teens before her for a few moments, the silver haired woman reached for something under her desk, the faint sound of rustling paper resonating throughout the otherwise silent room.

Pulling two sheets of paper from a desk drawer, the silver haired woman held them out for Damien to take as she spoke, "Alright, just sign those papers in the appropriate order, if there's something that you can't fill in then just leave it blank. I'll take care of the rest." She said in that same bored tone of voice, sitting up and heading to the back door when Damien took the papers from her grasp.

"Wait… that's it?" Ash chose that time to speak, no longer feeling the intimidating young woman's eyes boring down on him. "All it takes is a signed paper, and we're bounty hunters just like that?!" He found it hard to believe that that was all it took to make a possibly life changing decision.

"Yeah, that's all." The silver haired woman replied without turning back to look at them, she opened the door and quickly disappeared behind it.

Looking down at the sheets of paper in his hand, Damien felt Ash sidle beside him as he contemplated the strangeness of it all.

"She gives me the creeps." Ash and Damien both shivered slightly at the image of the young woman's piercing stare, they both agreed that she was indeed intimidating as all hell.

"Well… let's do this then." Damien gave one of the sheets of paper to Ash; leaving one for himself as they both made to fill out the paper work they had been given.

But before they could start, Ash realized something, "Wait, I don't have a pencil!" Damien realized this as well as he cursed silently, thinking that he should have asked the woman for a pencil before she left.

"Here ya go!"

Ash and Damien were startled when they realized that another person was in the room with them, standing right in front of them with an arm stretched out, a couple of number two pencils in the palm of his hand.

"Oh, uh … thanks." Ash took the pencils from the man's hand, giving one to Damien as they both stared in awe at the person in front of them.

They didn't stare at the man because they knew him or anything. They were staring at him because he was so fucking tall! The man stood at a grand height of 7'2, messy auburn hair adorning his head as he stared down at the two teens in confusion. He wore a black duster over a black muscle shirt, revealing a well toned chest that told them that this man was very well in the fitness department. He wore a pair of sleek white jeans over his legs, but they reasoned that he had reasonably toned muscles in his legs as well.

"Are you two alright?" The man asked, an eyebrow raised in confusion as Ash and Damien continued to stare at him in awe. Looking at the papers in their hands, the man's eyes brightened slightly as he addressed the awe struck teens. "Oh, are you two applying to become bounty hunters? You two look a little young to be doing_ that_ sort of work."

The man's words brought the two out their awe induced trance, the full meaning of what he said registering in their brains a moment later, "What's that supposed to mean?!" Ash asked, scowling somewhat at the thought of being underestimated because he was younger. Damien took slight offense as well but kept his tongue. "Just because you're bigger than us, doesn't mean that you can look down on us! … well, you can; but that doesn't mean you can underestimate us!"

Waving his hand in a placating manner, the man chuckled slightly as he walked towards the single piece of furniture in the room. "I didn't mean it like _that_. You two just look a bit young to being up to doing the work that being a bounty hunter entails." There was something about this man that only now did the two teens notice, he was carrying a tied up body on one of his shoulders!

The man grunted slightly as he slammed the tied up body onto the desk, managing to ring a small bell to the side from the force. "Names Reggie. Yours?"

Calming down somewhat, Ash looked down and made to fill out the still empty form in his hand. "My name's Ash Ketchum… anyone ever tell you you're tall as fuck?" Ash said while beginning to fill out his form, not looking up to see any reaction the man might have had to his response.

Reggie chuckled slightly as he began to untie the body on the desk, looking at Ash all the while with amused eyes. "You're funny kid, how about you pale face?" Reggie grinned slightly when Ash snorted in an effort to snuff out his laughter and Damien glared at them both with an "I am not amused" look on his face.

Damien growled slightly, wishing he could light up a smoke at the moment; but he knew it would only make it hotter than it already was down there. "My name's DAMIEN, not pale face." Was Damien's brief response before he resumed filling out his form.

A door opening quickly caught their attention as the creepy young woman from before stepped back into the room, holding two pieces of rectangular plastic in her hand. She sat back down at the desk, paying no mind to the body on her desk as she searched for something in one of her desk drawers.

"How can I help you, sir?" She said.

"I'd like to turn in this bounty please." Reggie said, patting the body laid flat on the desk.

"Dead or alive?"

"Dead."

Ash and Damien looked up at that, looking at the body more closely; the two saw that, whoever it was, the rise and fall of their chest that told of the body having life was absent.

Ash quickly looked back down at his paper, cringing slightly as he felt bile at the back of his throat. This didn't escape Reggie's notice.

Finally finding what she was looking for, the young woman glanced at the corpse on her desk, then at Reggie with her piercing eyes seeming to have no effect on the giant of a man. "Gran Polo 'The Anarchist'. Bounty of 11,000 ryo." Digging for something under her desk, the woman pulled out a sack from a drawer, passing it to Reggie as she effortlessly tossed the corpse over her shoulder for later collection. "After deductions, your total reward is 8,000 ryo. Your contribution is appreciated." She said this with the same bored tone in her voice, as if dealing with dead bodies was an everyday thing for her. And if they thought about it, it probably was.

Reggie nodded in appreciation as he began to walk back to the flight of stairs, ready to leave. Before he did, however, he stopped and looked down at Ash and Damien as they took a moment of reprieve to look back. "When you're done, I'll be waiting outside." And with that, Reggie made his way up the stairs, leaving Ash and Damien confused as to why he would wait for them.

After a few minutes, they were finally done filling out their paper work and proceeded to give them to the silver haired woman.

The silver haired woman studied the two papers intently, showing that, even through her bored demeanor, she did take her job seriously.

Nodding her head slightly, the silver haired woman placed the two forms off to the side. She gave the two teens each a plastic card of sorts. Looking at her in confusion, the silver haired woman elaborated, "Those are your licenses; you two are now officially bounty hunters." Turning the cards over, Ash and Damien saw that they were indeed a license for the both of them.

One question bugged them though, "How did you get our picture though? Or any of our personal information before we finished signing those forms?"

The silver haired woman stared at the two with her piercing black eyes for a long moment, never taking her eyes off of them as she spoke, "There are cameras hidden in the walls in this room, that's where we got your pictures. Your personal information? Just checked your records in the system."

"We have records?" They both said in unison, both of them honestly confused about what they had just heard.

"Everyone has a record. Everyone is in the system. It wasn't hard to find out who you two are." She left it that, leaning back in her chair and staring at them intently, almost _daring _them to waste her time with another question.

Taking the hint, Ash and Damien made their way out of the small office, both thankful for finally getting away from the presence of the very intimidating young woman. Though they did wonder as to how they both had records that could be so easily accessed.

The two teens spent the next few minutes in silence, making their way up the very long staircase while they thought of what the future would hold for them now. Becoming bounty hunters hadn't really determined much, there was still so much that was unknown about what the future would have in store for them. Were they really cut out for the task of being bounty hunters? Or were they destined to crash and burn at the hands of some ruthless criminal.

They put those thoughts to the back of their minds as they finally made it the exit, both panting slightly from the journey back up. Gravity could be such a bitch sometimes.

Making their way back into the outdoors, Ash and Damien were only slightly surprised to find that Reggie had kept his word.

Reggie gave a small smile once Ash and Damien finally left the insides of the shack, "Congratulations are in order, you two are now rookie bounty hunters!"

"Why'd you wait for us?" Putting aside the rookie comment for the time being, both Ash and Damien were considerably curious as to why Reggie had waited for them.

The smile fading from his lips, Reggie turned around and began to walk off into the woods, gesturing for them to follow him as he spoke, "I'm gonna help you two. I'm going to give you some tips on how to become successful bounty hunters."

Looking at each other in confusion, both teens asked the question that was on their minds.

"Why?"

Reggie turned around, a sad smile on his face as he stared at the newly minted bounty hunters. "I don't want to see any more children die if I can prevent it." After saying that, Reggie turned around once more, leading a confused duo of teenagers that honestly had no idea why Reggie wanted to help them.

"Wouldn't it just be easier to kill us instead of help us?"

Reggie chuckled slightly; he spoke to them without turning around to face them. "It would, but I'm not that kinda guy." Ash and Damien sighed in relief at that, ruling out the thought that he was looking to end their lives so early for the time being. "Plus, killing you two wouldn't benefit me since you two don't have a bounty yet." Reggie chuckled as he felt the two teenagers tense behind him; he could practically _smell_ their anxiousness.

* * *

Hiding in a tree off in the distance, a cloaked figure stared at the group of three, primarily at Ash. The mysterious figure stood up from his cover as he continued to observe his objective, making sure that he wouldn't lose them in the forests' thick foliage.

The figures eyes narrowed slightly at the sight of Ash, his brown eyes studying him with great intensity.

Sitting up, the figure finished his observation, writing something down in a small notebook before pocketing it. The figure took one last look at Ash, before he vanished in a black blur. The ones he had been observing never knowing that he had been watching them the whole time.

He would check back on Ash's progress with his powers much later.

* * *

**Chapter 6, done!**

**This is another long chapter with stuff that's going to begin holding up the plot for later on. **

**Ash and Damien are already on their way to moving on, though what exactly Reggie is going to teach them is still a mystery. Ash learned a bit more about his powers and he will eventually begin to use his powers in combat, but for now it's all development! **

**I in no way advise anyone to smoke, that shit will kill you. Just because a fictional character does it, doesn't mean you should!**

**Alright people, review. I want to know what you think about this story. How am I doing so far? I won't know if you don't tell me. If my story is entertaining to you in the slightest or if it's just a passing glance, then tell me. I can't make my story any better if no one is willing to point out any mistakes that I've made. **

**Well, that's enough of that!**

**Thank you for reading, and have a good morning/day/night!**


	7. Ch 7: Learning the Basics

**I realize that I probably should have done this quite a while ago, but nows a good time as any.**

**This is a warning. Not a severe warning, but a warning nonetheless. If you're the kind of person who absolutely HATES stories with multiple OC's, then I feel I should tell you to stop, and go read something else, 'cause this story is gonna' have **_**loads**_** of OC's in the future chapters. OC's are going to be abundant in this story and some of them are going to play major roles in the ensuing plot. Again, if that isn't your cup of tea, then I suggest you stop right now.**

**If you're not the kind of person I mentioned previously, then go ahead and ignore this and keep on reading. **

**Now that that's done… cue the disclaimer!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon in any way, shape, or form. But if I did, Ash wouldn't sound like an annoying, prepubescent 8-year old.**

* * *

Learning the Basics

"How'd we miss this place when we came through?"

About thirty minutes had passed since Ash and Damien had successfully become official bounty hunters. They had met up with Reggie afterwards and had followed him to the place he said he would take them to.

Reggie didn't immediately respond; looking around the clearing they had arrived in with narrowed eyes. After a few moments, Reggie responded without looking at Damien, "You really wouldn't be able to find anything in this forest unless you knew where to look. Quite frankly, I'm amazed that you two managed to get this far in only a few hours. Most people would have given up after wandering for about twenty minutes."

"Why are we here again?" Ash looked about the clearing with significantly less interest than his other two companions.

Seemingly satisfied with the results of his observation, Reggie looked down at the curious teenagers behind him with a serious expression, "I said that I would help you two become successful bounty hunters, and I meant it."

Damien crossed his arms, eyebrows raised as he looked at Reggie in a questioning manner, "Now, what exactly would it take to become 'successful' bounty hunters, as you so put it?"

"For starters…" Reggie paused for a brief moment, Ash and Damien looking to him expectantly. It only took that moment for Reggie to slug Ash in the face, causing him to stumble to the ground, and Damien to tense up as he reached for the handle to one of his katana, "Always be prepared for a surprise attack."

"You asshole!" Ash cried, holding his right cheek as his jaw throbbed with pain, "You could have said something first! That hurt for cryin' out loud!" Ash glared at Reggie as he stood up. He redirected his glare to Damien as the pale-skinned teen chuckled, covering his mouth with his sleeve to uselessly stifle his laugh. "Quiet you."

Reggie popped his knuckles, staring at the two teens in front of him as they stared back, "Why would I give away my actions when I could just as easily catch you off guard? It's a basic strategy at its finest." Reggie gave a faint smile as Ash crossed his arms and pouted in resignation while Damien relaxed his grip on the handle of his katana. "This is one of the lessons that you're going to have to learn if you're serious about being bounty hunters. If not, theeeen... you might as well just drop dead right now."

Ash and Damien gave a slight start at hearing that, taking Reggie's serious expression as a hint that he meant what he said. They looked at each other for a moment, both silently looking for the others answer. Nodding in confirmation, Ash and Damien looked up at Reggie with determination in their eyes.

Seeing this, Reggie couldn't help but chuckle a bit, "_They remind me a bit of me when I first started out._" Reggie thought, nodding his head approvingly at the eagerness the teens showed.

"It's settled then. I'll teach you both a bit of the basics, but after that you're on your own. A crucial part of being a successful bounty hunter is being able to adapt to any possible situation, and the only way you're gonna be able to do that properly is by learning to do so from experience." Reggie explained, getting attentive nods in response from the listening teens.

"What's the first thing you're gonna teach us?" Ash asked eagerly, ignoring the slowly fading pain in his cheek to listen to their tall companion.

"Are you gonna punch Ash in the face again? 'Cause I wouldn't mind seeing that again." Damien said, a teasing grin being sent Ash's way as the raven haired teen glared at him. "What? It'll build up your pain tolerance!"

"_I've had enough of THAT, thank you very much._" Ash thought, crossing his arms and looking at the darkening sky through the forest canopy.

Chuckling slightly, Reggie shook his head at Damien, "While that last thing is kind of useful, you both will develop that for yourselves in the near future. No, the first thing we're going to do is get a grip on your combat capabilities, see where you both stand and where you can improve."

"How're we gonna' do that?" Asked Ash, arms still crossed but now looking at Reggie with rapt attention.

Both Ash and Damien tensed when Reggie bent slightly lower into a stance, staring at them both intently with a wry grin on his face, "By having a friendly spar, of course. Now who's going first?"

Before anything else could be said or done, Ash stepped forward, a determined grin on his face, and faced Reggie with a confident step, "I'll take a crack at you, Reggie! A little 'payback' for that surprise attack of yours."

Reggie cracked a small smile at that, re-adjusting his stance slightly as he watched Ash get into a sloppy brawler's stance, "You alright with that, pale-face?"

Damien nodded, leaning on a nearby tree as he looked at the both of them from a safe distance, "I'm cool with it. Commence to beating each other senseless while I watch!"

Reggie merely nodded in response, rotating his shoulders slightly to get any last minute kinks out.

Ash grinned, determination clear in his brown eyes as he looked at Reggie.

"There any rules I should know about before we start?" Ash asked.

Reggie put on a thoughtful look, temporarily taking his eyes off of Ash to think it over. After a moment of thought, Reggie nodded and looked back to Ash as he spoke, "Just one. If I say that we're done, then we're done. No trying get in a cheap shot. Got it?" Seeing Ash's nod, Reggie gave a small smile as he prepared himself for whatever the raven haired teen would throw at him.

"Good."

Not being one to wait very long, Ash immediately rushed forward, intent on getting the first blow.

Merely feet away from each other, Ash cocked his right arm back and clenched his fist tight, his brown eyes hard as steel as he glared at the stationary form of his opponent. With confidence in his heart and soul, Ash threw his fist forward in a powerful jab aimed at Reggie's chest, but with only seconds to spare before it hit, Reggie sidled to Ash's left at the last moment, shocking Ash and the observing Damien greatly at the man's speed.

"_Wha-! h-how did he dodge that so quickly?!_" Ash mentally asked himself, his eyes full of shock and awe as he looked at the auburn haired man.

It took a second too late for Ash to realize that missing his initial strike had left him open for retaliation, an opening that was immediately taken advantage of when Reggie's fist struck Ash's face in a powerful haymaker.

Ash grunted in pain as the powerful blow caused him to fly back several feet away, landing painfully on his back as he held his jaw in pain while he struggled to clear the cobwebs from his brain. He struggled to his feet as he stared ahead at his opponent, wiping away a drop of blood that dribbled from his mouth. "_He's fast AND he's strong? Shit!_" He thought to himself, grimacing slightly at the coppery taste of blood in his mouth.

Doubt began to settle in his mind, but he quickly snuffed out the feeling before it could start to take hold. Ash snorted slightly before he spit out a mixture a blood and saliva, the crimson liquid soon hitting the ground with a quiet *splat*.

"That all ya' got?"

Reggie smiled at that, chuckling slightly at the glare the raven haired teen threw at him, "I'm glad to see you're confident Ash, but no, you'll see that that's not 'all I've got'." At this Reggie's facial expression hardened once more, eye's hard as steel as he prepared himself to strike. "I hope you have what it takes to back up that confidence of yours." He took off in a sprint, his speed surprising the two teens once again.

Ash quickly snapped out of his surprised state when he saw how quickly Reggie was approaching him. He knew that with the speed and strength that he had shown thus far, he wouldn't be able to do much against him, but he would still damn well try!

He quickly jumped to the left when Reggie's right fist came at him in a straight jab, but suddenly found the breath knocked out him when Reggie's left hand struck his stomach with a fierce palm strike, causing him to fold over in pain. He didn't get a chance to regain his bearings before Reggie's knee made a painful impact on his chin, his head being knocked back painfully and his neck stretching enough to make him gag slightly.

Also, he was pretty sure he felt something knock against his skull for a moment.

A quick, painful kick to the torso once again knocked Ash back to the hard ground, the force of the kick enough to knock him back a few feet as well.

"Hah... hah... knocked back on my ass... again..." Ash gasped out painfully, struggling to his feet but only managing to get on his knees before he hunched over and went into a coughing fit, tiny specks of crimson liquid being expelled from his mouth every time he coughed.

An overhead shadow caused him to look up, the position that he was in made Reggie's already tall stature make him look like a giant.

A giant that wasn't done kicking his ass.

* * *

Off to the side, Damien had been observing the spar as best as he could in preparation for his own spar against the tall auburn haired man, but Reggie's superior speed put a damper on those plans, "_He's so fast! All I can see whenever he moves is a blur!_" Damien's eyes narrowed, his mind trying to make sense of what he had seen thus far. "_And his strength..._" Nervousness began to take hold of him at that. "_Is this what an experienced fighter is capable of? Being able to perform feats that a normal person could only dream of?!_" A pit formed in his stomach at the thought. A bead of nervous sweat slowly dripped from his forehead down to his nose, trickling down to the green grass below.

If Reggie was a viable example of what other bounty hunters were like out in the rest of the world...

"_What have we gotten ourselves into._"

A yell of pain quickly brought Damien out of his thoughts. Looking up, he saw Ash had once again been sent flying from a kick to the gut, courtesy of Reggie, who quickly dashed forward, unwilling to give Ash any recovery time.

"_Gah! ... Dammit! ... Shit!_" Ash quickly found himself defenseless at Reggie's ruthless barrage of attacks. Every time he thought that he would have a moment to recover, that thought was instantly ripped away from him when Reggie came at him again and again with another painful hit from an arm, a leg, or both! Each impact hurt just as much, if not more, than the last.

Another painful kick to the chest sent Ash flying, landing on his already-wounded chest, causing him to groan at the added pain. His face was riddled with small cuts and bruises, dirt caked around his mouth and eyelids, and some blood was dribbling out of his open mouth.

He took deep, gasping breaths, which only served to aggravate his wounds, desperate to get as much oxygen into his lungs before Reggie could continue his brutal assault. He heard heavy footsteps to the side, and he think didn't twice about preparing himself for another round of hurt.

Reggie used a foot to casually turn Ash over on his back, the pressure of his boot to his side causing the raven haired teen to wince in pain. He leaned over and grabbed Ash by the collar of his shirt, raising him up just enough to put him back on his feet. Seeing Ash look up at him in confusion, Reggie only smirked before he launched a powerful haymaker to Ash's chin, causing him to fly back once more and hit the ground painfully. He stared at Ash's prone body, waiting for the raven haired teen to make any movements that would indicate he could still handle anymore.

Ash lay on the hard ground, eye's closed as he tried to steady his breathing and trying not to groan in pain every time he would be forced to move his body or a gust of wind would brush up against his wounded body.

"I guess you couldn't handle it."

Ash raised his head to look at Reggie, eye's wide open as he stared into his opponents disappointed eye's.

"You have confidence, I'll give you that. But you don't have what it takes to become a great bounty hunter." Reggie shook his head, disappointment clear in his expression as he spoke to the wide-eyed teen. "If you can take a hit, but can't give one back, then what good would come out of sending you out into the real world, where if you were to go up against a real opponent they wouldn't hesitate to take you out for good." Reggie sighed, turning his back his injured opponent.

"If one of you fails, then both of y-!"

Reggie was stopped from speaking any further when his right shoulder suddenly flared in pain, most likely dislocating it in the process as well by the feel of it. He quickly put his shoulder back in it's proper place and looked behind him, his eye's widening at what he saw.

"Shut up."

Fists clenched tight and eye's alight with rage, Ash glared at Reggie with great intensity as he stood straight with almost no sign of fatigue whatsoever. His body seemed to ignore the injuries that had been inflicted upon it as he moved with surprising speed and buried his right fist into Reggie's torso, causing him to grunt in pain as he stared at the raven haired teen, surprise clear in his expression as he tried to ponder as to how he could have recovered so quickly.

"You don't get to decide what I can or can't do." Ash eye's were as hard as steel, never letting up on the heated glare he sent at Reggie. "You think that a few cuts and bruises here and there will put me down for good? Let me tell you, I've had worse than this!" Ash roared, surprising both Reggie and Damien at his sudden attitude change.

"You think I'm done?! I won't stop until I've given everything you threw at me back at you ten-fold!" With a load roar, Ash ran as quick as legs would allow him, intent to harm clear in his eye's as he charged at Reggie.

While he was still slightly surprised at this sudden change, Reggie quickly snapped himself out of it as he prepared himself for whatever Ash would throw at him. "_Is he going to try a direct assault again? He should know that that's not going to work a second time._" He shifted his stance slightly, anticipating a second direct attack.

He wasn't disappointed.

Ash indeed came at him with another direct assault, aiming for another straight jab, just as he did earlier. Reggie blocked it easily, having his elbow take the blow for him while he prepared to counter with a palm strike with his other hand, but was in for a surprise when Ash took the blow directly to the abdomen, only moving back an inch or so before he gave a fierce retaliation by a powerful haymaker to the stomach, surprising Reggie greatly from the force he felt behind the blow.

This particular hit caused Reggie to stumble backwards, giving Ash an ample opportunity to strike once more as he ducked down and pushed himself forward, driving his shoulder into Reggie's torso with great force.

Ash's powerful shoulder tackle forced the air out Reggie's lungs, momentarily disorienting him long enough for Ash to get one last jab to his chest, causing Reggie to tumble to the ground for the first time since their spar began.

Ash looked over the fallen form of his opponent, breathing deeply as he did so, the glare in his eye's never leaving him as he stared at his seemingly defeated opponent.

"I told you, Reggie. You can't decide what I can or can- GAH!" With a yelp of pain, Ash was sent flying back as Reggie discreetly raised his left leg and kicked Ash in the stomach with great force.

Reggie quickly pushed himself back to his feet, taking a moment to catch his breath as he took the time to observe his recovering opponent. "_Where did this sudden surge of energy come from? One moment he's lying on the ground, completely out of it, and the next he's up and ready for another round!_" Reggie took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as his eyes locked on to the rising form of his opponent.

Ash shook his head as he recovered from the painful impact, a low growl escaping his lips as he grit his teeth. He glared at his auburn haired opponent as he charged forward once more, the intent to severely hurt him was clear in his eyes.

Reggie quickly dodged to the left when Ash came at him with a right hook. He grabbed Ash's forearm and pulled him in, surprising him long enough for Reggie to slam his fist into the teens nose, following it up by harshly raising his knee into his torso.

Through tightly gritted teeth, Ash continued to glare at Reggie as his body was wracked with pain from his brutal assault. Fueled by budding anger, Ash quickly recovered from Reggie's hits and quickly tried to retaliate by throwing a sloppy palm thrust at his stomach, but missed when Reggie quickly ducked down, dodging Ash's initial strike with ease but was painfully surprised when Ash slammed his knee to into his face.

Reggie quickly jumped back a bit, examining his nose to see if it had been broken. Finding it to be only a minor bruise, he looked at Ash, a smile on his face as he thought over all he had seen and experienced from their spar. He looked up as he saw Ash quickly approaching, fist cocked back to inflict another anger-fueled blow.

"Alright. That's enough."

Ash's look of anger was quickly replaced with one of confusion, surprise evident on his face as he stumbled to a halt, barely keeping himself from falling flat on his face at Reggie's sudden announcement. The slightly threatening feeling that had seemed to permeate the air suddenly vanished, causing Ash and the observing Damien's feelings of nervousness to subside slightly.

Reggie got out of his combat stance while he gently wiped off a bit of blood trailing down his lips, a contemplative look in his eyes as he looked at Ash.

"I think that's enough to get a feel for your overall skills." Reggie nodded to himself at this, he closed his eyes in thought as he put together all the bits and pieces of info he managed to gather. Opening his eyes at the feeling of being watched, Reggie looked down at Ash's prone form, a surprised and slightly skeptical look on his face.

Ash blinked in rapid succession, feeling immense confusion at what Reggie had just said. "T-that's it? We're done... just like that?!" Ash questioned, the anger fueled adrenaline that had moments ago been coursing through his veins now beginning to dissipate, his strength starting to leave him.

Reggie gained a look of understanding at that. He understood why he would be confused when he just suddenly decided to end their fight, "Yeah, that was it. You can go back over to the side with Damien and take a rest."

Ash sagged a bit at his response, his exhaustion now truly starting to take hold. He began to tiredly make his to where Damien was waiting, a limp in his step as he panted in exhaustion as he dragged his tired body to his waiting friend.

Unfortunately for him, his body decided that it had pushed itself too far for the day, and gave out on him, causing Ash to tumble to the ground in a wounded heap. He tried to get back up, but found that he lacked the strength to do so. No matter how much he tried, his body refused to move.

"You alright, Ash?" Ash looked up from his spot on the ground, finding a concerned Damien hovering over him.

Panting in exhaustion, Ash could barely speak his mind from the pain that wracked his body, "T-tired... so... tired..." This gave way to more panting. "C-can't... move... everything hurts."

Damien looked down at his ailing friend, concern clear in his eyes as he wracked his brain for a way to help him. Loud shuffling and movement got Damien's attention, causing him to look back up when he saw that Reggie was carrying Ash's prone form under his arm. "You need any help?" He couldn't help but ask.

Reggie shook his head, choosing to decline the teens offer of assistance, "No thanks. Since you've been watching us this whole time, you should know that I have above average strength. Carrying a kid isn't really taxing on me; besides, he doesn't really weigh that much."

And he was right. Upon closer inspection, Damien saw that Ash's weight didn't seem to affect Reggie at all, and if it did, he was doing a damn good job of hiding it.

Nodding in acceptance, Damien and his tall companion made their way to the outer edges of the clearing, close enough to the trees to provide shade and a modest amount of shelter.

Reggie gently placed Ash on the ground, who by this point was unconscious from the physically strenuous spar he had with Reggie, and propped him up against a tree to keep him from falling over and disturbing his well-earned slumber.

"I guess it's my turn now, right." It was a statement, not a question. Damien already knew the answer to that. With Ash's well being now assured, Damien knew it was his turn to be subjected to the cruel beat-down that Ash had suffered, though if he had anything to say about it, he would do everything in his limited capabilities to ensure he wouldn't end up as bad as his unconscious raven haired friend.

With one last look to Ash's resting form, Reggie looked at his companion with a smirk on his lips and a deep chuckle that shook his slightly toned chest.

"Yup."

Damien nodded in acceptance, unsheathing only one of his katana as he and Reggie made their way back to the part of the clearing that he and Ash had used for their spar. Once in position, Damien got into a slightly sloppy stance, keeping his focus on his opponent as he adjusted his grip on his sword. "_Alright. After everything I saw from his spar with Ash, I know that Reggie has the obvious advantage in the speed and strength department, and I didn't get to see much of his fighting style, he just seemed to deviate slightly from Ash's sloppy fighting style. Plus, he doesn't look the least winded from his fight with Ash._" All of this information only served to make him nervous. It had been quite a long time since he had gotten any practice with his swords. All of what he did back in his fiasco with Ace in his base had all been merely instinctual, mere remnants of what he had learned years ago. He held no delusions that he stood a chance at beating Reggie in any kind of fight.

Doubt began to seep into his being as he swallowed the accumulated saliva in his mouth in a nervous gulp. Nervousness began to override his logical mind at every listed disadvantage that was stacked against him. Looking to the side at his unconscious friend, he couldn't help but think back to when Ash had been able to temporarily overcome his limitations and fight evenly with Reggie. Determination had seemed to roll off of him in waves at the time, even after suffering the beating of a life time. Damien had no doubts that Ash knew he was in over his head when he volunteered to go up against an opponent with far more experience than the both of them combined, and it was this that made Damien realize that he couldn't doubt himself if he wanted to stand any chance at going up against Reggie. If Ash could have the confidence to stand up to their obviously stronger opponent, then why couldn't he?

Damien took a deep breath, then exhaled slowly as his eyes narrowed in determination. His stance became slightly more fluid as Damien's newfound confidence in himself helped to better focus his mind. "_I can't doubt myself. Ash didn't and he was at least able to get in a few hits before it became too much for him. I'm gonna try to do the same!_"

Reggie gave a small smile at seeing Damien re-assert his confidence in himself, "_He's going to need it._" He told himself. He didn't give Ash any mercy in their fight, neither would he give any to Damien. "Our spar will have the same rules as the last one. Use whatever you have to use and no cheap shots. That alright with you, pale face?"

Damien nodded in confirmation, his only response to Reggie's joking taunt a slight twitch of his right eye,

"Ready... go!"

This time it was Reggie who decided to go in for the first strike.

Only slightly surprised by this course of action, Damien pushed himself to his left with all the strength his legs would allow, dodging Reggie's fist by a mere fraction of a second. Damien stumbled for a moment, not used to greater feats of physical activity after years of malpractice. "_Kami, I'm out of shape..._" He made a mental note to begin training once more after this was over. If what he had seen from his auburn haired opponents actions reflected even a fraction of what any other experienced bounty hunter or criminal could do, then being out of practice was something that he would have to rectify as soon as possible.

Damien quickly moved in to try to get a hit in on his opponent. He swung his sword at Reggie's side, barely missing when he backpedaled a few steps to avoid the blow. He pressed his assault by rushing forward with his sword held back in preparation for a stab.

Damien was in for quite a surprise when his sword stab wasn't dodged, but parried... with his bare hand! He stared in absolute disbelief at the sight before him.

Reggie held his hand out in a chopping motion, his bare flesh somehow left unmarred by the solid steel blade of Damien's katana. He looked at Damien with a crooked smile on his lips, a gleam of mischief in his glaring eyes as he stared into Damien's shocked grey orbs.

Damien was literally knocked out of his state of shock by a hard fist colliding with his face, his sword flying out of his grip and into the air as he was sent tumbling to the ground in a big heap. Quickly making it back to his feet, Damien gently rubbed his cheek where he had been hit, a wince and a grimace escaping his lips at the touch. "_I'm gonna feel THAT in the morning; hell, I'm feeling it right now!_"

A blade embedding itself into the ground right in front of him broke Damien from his thoughts; that very same blade, upon discovery, turned out to be his. Looking at his quickly approaching opponent, Damien quickly yanked his sword out of the ground by its hilt and slid to the right when Reggie came at him with a straight jab. He quickly dashed forward and swung his sword down on Reggie's outstretched arm.

With reflexes honed from years of combat, Reggie contoured his body slightly to catch Damien's arm by the wrist with his other hand and roughly shoved his elbow into Damien's stomach, causing him to fold over and the air to be knocked out of his lungs.

"Why aren't you using both of your swords?"

Damien looked up at his opponent at his sudden question, confusion in his pain filled eyes as he tried to recover from having an appendage slammed into his gut.

Seeing his confused expression, he clarified, "Why have you only been using ONE of your swords when I know that you've received training in the past for using both of them?"

Damien grunted slightly as he pushed himself back to his feet while holding a hand over his stomach, a small smile on his face as his expression was filled with... shame? "The reason I'm only using one of my swords is because, even though you're right about my past training, it's been a long time since I've practiced what I learned so long ago. It's been so long in fact, that I'd nearly forgotten that I had trained to do so in the first place." By this time Damien's gray eyes were alight with shame. "The only time in these past few years that I've even used these swords in tandem is just last week when me and Ash infiltrated the base of a branch crime lord; and even then it was nothing special the way I used my katana." He knew without a doubt that if Ash hadn't of accompanied him on that night, he would most likely have died that night.

"I won't use both of my swords... because I've nearly forgotten how to do so."

Reggie looked down at his opponent, shame seeming to roll off the teen in waves. It was obvious to him that this had been bugging the young man for quite some time now, possibly for years. He gave a slight nod when Damien finished his explanation. With a small sigh, Reggie gave a small smile at his companion while his combat stance slackened and a confused Damien did the same.

"That's all I needed to know."

Damien gave a slight start at this, his eyes widening in realization. "Wait... that's it? We're done already?!" The pain made it seem like an eternity but he knew that it couldn't have been more than twenty minutes since they had begun their spar.

"Yeah, that's it. I gotta tell ya, you were a bit quicker on your feet than Ash was." Reggie chuckled slightly as he stretched his limbs, slight cracking noises emanating from his joints and neck muscles.

His mouth agape in shock, Damien could do nothing but stare at the tall auburn haired man as he continued his stretches, oblivious to the young teens predicament.

"Oi! Why'd I get my ass kicked to kingdom come, but Damien gets off with only a few bruises?!" Damien and Reggie looked over to the side to see that sometime during their short fight, Ash had woken up and had been watching them the whole time.

Looking at each other with a confused look, Reggie and Damien headed over to their incapacitated companion, who was still ranting about Damien getting off easier than he had.

"... And I have no idea if any of my ribs are broken, 'cause every part of my body hurts like hell right now!" Ash ranted, paying only half a mind to the arrival of his companions. "The guy got an elbow to the stomach? Well I got a freakin' roundhouse kick to the chest! You think that feels pleasant? It doesn't!"

An annoyed tick mark formed on Damien's forehead at Ash's incessant ranting and rambling. Having enough of his friends annoying attitude, Damien kicked him in the side, and seeing as Ash was still sitting on the ground, it was pretty easy to do so without him noticing.

"Haaaahhhh!" Was what escaped from Ash's gaping mouth, the kick to his side temporarily putting his mind out of commission from the pain. It took only a second for Ash's mind to register that he should be rolling around on the ground in agonizing discomfort... which he proceeded to do so immediately.

Damien and Reggie watched in awkward discomfort as Ash rolled on the ground, yelling and howling like an injured dog; but his rolling seemed to only make the pain worse, which caused him to yell even louder.

"... I probably shouldn't have done that..." Damien said with a deadpan expression on his face and a large anime sweat drop on the back of his head.

"You think!" Yelled Ash in... pain.

Scratching his head in a nervous fashion, Reggie decided to put a stop to Ash's escapades and get on with his lesson. He grabbed an unsuspecting Ash by the waist, hoisting him up onto his shoulder. The result? Another round of awkward discomfort as an even bigger sweat drop formed on Damien's head, and a normal one on Ash's, who lay on Reggie's broad shoulder in the shape of an upside-down "C".

There was an awkward silence for about two whole minutes, nought but the steady chirping of birds and arriving crickets could be heard in the nearby vicinity.

Ash's lips were set into a straight line as he stared at the ground from his awkward position, his eyes half-lidded as his brain came to terms with his embarrassing situation; Reggie held a tense look as he tried his best to look at his young charge situated on his shoulder, and Damien was biting his lip almost hard enough to draw blood in order to try to keep the impending laughter from escaping him.

"..."

"..."

"..."

"... Put me down."

"Are you gonna be a good boy?"

At this point Damien had clamped a hand on his mouth to keep from bursting into hysterics, and a tick mark had formed on Ash's forehead, a frustrated and exasperated look on his face as a bright red blush situated itself on the bridge of his nose.

Reggie asked again, just for the sake of it, "Well, are you?"

"Yeah, yeah. I'll be good."

"That's not good enough. Say it right."

Steam seemed to be coming out Ash's ears at this point as Reggie made the situation increasingly more embarrassing for him, and as best as he could, he sent a scathing glare in what he felt was Damien's general direction when he heard the sound of muffled laughter.

"... fine." Ash grumbled in resignation, accepting his fate. "Yes, sir. I'll be a good boy from now on."

"There we go! Now was that so hard?" Reggie chuckled slightly as he finally put Ash back on solid ground, his death glare having a hard time of choosing him or Damien to fixate itself upon.

Damien, for the lack of better words, was dying. His funny bone was having the time of it's life as the pale skinned teen rolled on the ground, holding his stomach with both arms as he laughed to the point of breathlessness, tears of mirth pouring out of his eyes.

Ash contemplated the urge to kick Damien in the ribs as hard as he could in revenge, but thought better of it when his body adamantly protested any physical activity for the moment. He instead situated his piercing glare at Reggie, a smile of mirth on the auburn haired man's lips.

"Was that really necessary?"

"No. But it was funny." Reggie replied with a small chuckle, actually "feeling" the glare of death Ash was giving him as, in the background, Damien's laughter seemed to increase tenfold at apparently still being able to hear a word they said over his hysterical laughter.

"... Fuck you both." Ash eloquently put in his feelings on the matter.

* * *

After having finally calmed down from their little humorous moment, Ash, Damien and Reggie sat themselves on the ground in a circle; it was clear that the time for fun and games was over. It was to for Reggie to give them his evaluation of their skills.

Ash and Damien stared at Reggie in absolute silence, each wondering, dreading. The auburn haired man had his eyes closed in thought, putting together every single thing he had learned about his young charges in his head... at least, that was what he wanted them to think. In truth, he already knew what he had to say to the both of them, he just wanted to keep them waiting a bit so they would stew in their anxiety. It was hard to keep a smile off his face when he could hear the sound of shifting dirt constantly.

Reggie clapped his hands together with great force, startling both of his teenage companions and causing them to tumble over unto their backs. He allowed himself a small grin before yet again plastering a serious look on his face once his young charges got their bearings straight.

He got their absolute attention when he cleared his throat loud enough to startle some nearby birds from their nest, their necks whirling around to look at him so fast, he could have sworn he heard a *crack* from one of them.

"Alright. The both of you are obviously curious about what I think about you and your combat skills, correct?"

Curious was an understatement, but they nonetheless nodded in confirmation.

"Well... alright then. First up is you, Ash." Pointing a finger at him for emphasis, making the raven haired teen gulp nervously.

Ash braced himself for anything Reggie had to say. He knew that bad things would come his way.

"Well, where do I start. First of all, you're a bit headstrong. Damien had it right when he tried to observe and analyze what he could about my combat prowess; you, however, charged in recklessly when it came time to act, and while sometimes it's good to try to get in the first hit in a fight, doing that against an opponent that you KNOW is superior to you in skill is a big mistake on your part. A mistake that, if I had been any other man, would have gotten you killed. From what I've seen, you have little to no combat experience, or any previous training. At least, not any that I can pick up on; and while I can understand that, since you're just a kid and all, going into a dangerous profession unprepared will certainly leave you at a GREAT disadvantage, and that's putting it lightly! The fact that you were able to get through a base full of thugs, especially some with weapons, I feel, was a fluke."

Ash bowed his head down in shame more and more at every bad thing Reggie had to say about his skills; or lack thereof. It hurt to know that he had only served to live so far by a mere fluke.

"But..."

Ash raised his head at that, surprise evident on his face when Reggie's voice took a more gentler tone.

" I have to say, I admire the fact that, even though you don't show signs of any previous training, you seem like you're capable of holding your own against me. You're pain tolerance must be pretty high for you to be able to take so many blows without immediately being down for the count. I can't tell you how many rookie bounty hunters I've seen that have died because they couldn't take a hit properly. You, however, were able to take a few hits and, even though you must have been in excruciating pain, you were still able to get back up and keep going for more. That shows promise. And that outburst of anger you had? I, to be honest, didn't really expect it much; but it was a nice change of pace that it gave you. That anger shot some adrenaline into your veins, and adrenaline boosts have saved plenty of lives in the past. Your emotional control could use a bit of work, but that's not really up to me to do anything about."

This bit of good news served to cheer Ash up greatly, a grin making it's way to his face, and it seemed to be slightly contagious since Damien shared in the good mood as well and gave a small smile.

"My final thoughts? You have potential, kid. That much is certain; you're a bit rough around the edges though, but that can easily be fixed with plenty of training and practice. You have a good set of wits about you, and you're punches aren't too bad either. Try to read up on some fighting styles at a library, or, heck, if you feel lucky enough, come up with one of your own. It'll certainly give you something unexpected for you to throw at any opponent you may come across. Practice makes perfect, kid. Remember that. Anyway, that's all I have to say right now, Ash. You have potential, but you've got a long way to go before you can go after the big guys out there. Nevertheless, I know that you will be a great bounty hunter in the future."

Ash nodded in acceptance, a determined fire in his eyes as he silently promised himself to start training as soon as possible.

With his evaluation on Ash done, Reggie's sights turned to Damien.

"Alright, my second, and last, charge, Pale face." Damien braced himself as well, not exactly sure what to expect.

"Like I said to Ash, you did good in trying to see what I could do by observing my fight with him. Unfortunately for you, even though observation is sometimes good to use in battle, this was not one of those times. Observation didn't help you much since I was simply too fast for you to get a proper assessment of my abilities. For the time being, the only thing you know about me is that I have a great amount of experience in combat, I'm faster, and I'm stronger than you. That didn't help you much when it came time to take action. you had the right idea, you just couldn't put it into great use, simply because I was a superior opponent; and while you managed to dodge a couple of my hits, the stronger ones managed to get you, which, again, if I were anyone else, those hits could have been fatal."

Damien took this all in, putting it to mind his weaknesses and limitations. He knew there was still more he had to say though, so he kept listening.

"Now, onto the good news. You told me that it's been a few years since you trained in using your swords, but that can easily be rectified. I can tell that you still haven't forgotten some of those more ingrained lessons in the art of the sword that you learned years ago, and with some help in Ash as your sparring partner, you can slowly regain, and increase, your skills in properly using your katana. I have no doubts in my mind that with a little perseverance you can become a great bounty hunter and swordsman one day."

Ash and Damien nodded to each other, both satisfied with the evaluation of their skills. Reggie had been strict, but fair in his judgement, and they knew to keep his words to heart.

"One last thing."

Ash and Damien looked at Reggie, both eager to get any tidbit of information from the experienced bounty hunter.

"One piece of advice before we're done here. Try to be a bit more creative in the way you fight from now on." At their confused looks, Reggie clarified, "Being straightforward is good and all, but legends in the past were born from thinking outside the box. Coming up with a new technique that no ones ever seen before would certainly put someone off guard, which would give you the opportunity to take them out. Understand now?"

They were still slightly confused, but they caught the gist of it.

"Think outside the box. Got it!"

Reggie nodded in satisfaction, glad that the little lesson that he had given his two companions was over.

"Alright, guys. We're done for today. It's getting late, and I'm sure the both of you want to get some rest." He looked at Ash specifically when he said that, causing the boy to give him a tired grin. "If you two want to learn anything extra before I leave, meet me at the west outpost gate tomorrow at two." He knew they would show up, so he knew he'd have to prepare a little.

Ash and Damien gave a nod at that, small smiles on their faces that told him they were grateful for what he was doing for them.

"Alright. guys. Have a good night, and I'll possibly see you both tomorrow."

The two teens watched as Reggie gave a bow, then began to walk away towards what they believed to be the exit of the forest.

Damien gave a loud yawn at that moment, the day's events catching up to him. "Man, I don't know about you Ash, but I'm freakin' tired. Wandering a forest for hours on end, and then getting my ass handed to me by a bounty hunter. It's been a long day!"

Ash gave a deadpanned look, his eye twitching at what his friend had seemed to unwittingly imply.

"You call that getting you're ass handed to you? You must be a wuss then, because I went through WAY worse than you did, and I'm not even freakin' tired!"

Damien stared long and hard at his friend, running his eyes over the tears on his clothes, and the cuts and bruises on his skin. Even to this very minute it seemed that Ash couldn't stand up without any help. A proverbial light bulb lit up in his head at this thought.

"Weeeeell, if you're not tired, then I guess you can walk through the forest and back to the Inn on your own." Ash's eyes widened at this. "Yup. Those legs of yours look super healthy! You don't need me to 'help' you or anything. No, you're just fine on your own."

Damien began walking away, whistling nonchalantly as he followed the same general direction he had seen Reggie walk in.

"_He's not actually gonna..._"

"I'll see you at the hotel!"

"_Fuck, he is!_"

"Aw, c'mon Damien! I was only kidding! Y-you're not actually gonna leave me out here, are ya..."

By this time, Damien was barely visible through the thick shrubs of the forest, his black cloak the only thing giving him away.

"Damien... Damien! ... Dammit Damien, you get back here! You can't just leave me out here, you son of a bitch!

The laughter of a certain pale skinned young man rang through the forest as Ash's yells continued to change from pleading to begging, then to threats, angry ranting, then back to pleading.

And all was right in the world.

* * *

**Well, after quite a bit of time, I finally managed to get this chapter out.**

**From school to procrastination... I really don't have much of an excuse as to why this chapter is so late. Stuff happened, butts were kicked, and fighting scenes were tried once more! **

**Added in a bit of humor in there, just to see how it would work. Reggie has taught a lesson to Ash and Damien, one that I'll make sure they don't forget! 'Cause I'm the author, I absolutely can't forget any of this crap! A pebbles worth of insight to Damien's past, and a possible basis for a fighting style that I might make for Ash. **

**So, tell me what you think! You like? You no like? **

**You tell me!**

**R&R please, and have a good night/morning/day!**


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